Genome-scale mutagenesis screens for genes essential for apicomplexan parasite survival have been completed in three species: Plasmodium falciparum, the major human malaria parasite, Plasmodium berghei, a model rodent malaria parasite, and the more distantly related Toxoplasma gondii, the causative agent of toxoplasmosis. These three species share 2606 single-copy orthologs, 1500 of which have essentiality data in all three screens. In this review, we explore the overlap between these datasets to define the core essential genes of the phylum Apicomplexa. We further discuss the implications of these groundbreaking studies for understanding apicomplexan parasite biology, and we identify promising areas of focus for developing new pan-apicomplexan parasite interventions.

已在三个物种中完成了对顶复门寄生虫生存所必需基因的基因组规模诱变筛选：恶性疟原虫，主要的人类疟原虫，伯氏疟原虫，一种啮齿动物疟原虫模型，以及关系更远的弓形虫，弓形虫病的病原体。这三个物种共享 2606 个单拷贝直系同源物，其中 1500 个在所有三个筛选中都有必要性数据。在这篇综述中，我们探索了这些数据集之间的重叠，以定义 Apicomplexa 门的核心必需基因。我们进一步讨论了这些开创性研究对了解顶复门寄生虫生物学的影响，并确定了开发新的泛顶复门寄生虫干预措施的有希望的重点领域。