Schizont transcriptome variation among clinical isolates and laboratory-adapted clones of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

Analysis of multiple biological sample replicates greatly improves identification of genes variably expressed between different cultured parasite lines. Clinical isolates recently established in culture show differences from long-term adapted clones in transcript levels of particular genes, and are suitable for analyses requiring biological replicates to understand parasite phenotypes and variable expression likely to be relevant in nature.