Comparative Genomics of Two Protozoans and Reveals Conserved As Well As Distinct Regulatory Pathways Crucial for Exploring Novel Therapeutic Targets for Malaria

, which causes life-threatening cerebral malaria has rapidly gained resistance against most frontline anti-malarial drugs, thereby generating an urgent need to develop novel therapeutic approaches. Conducting in-depth investigations on in its native form is challenging, thereby necessitating the requirement of an efficient model system. In line, mounting evidence suggests that retains both conformational and functional properties of proteins, however, the true potential of as a host system is not fully explored. In the present study, we have exploited comparative genomics as a tool to extract, compare, and curate the extensive data available on the organism-specific databases to evaluate if can be established as a prime model system for functional characterization of genes. Through comprehensive analysis, we report that despite the presence of adaptation-specific genes, the two display noteworthy conservation in the housekeeping genes, signaling pathway components, transcription regulators, and post-translational modulators. Furthermore, through orthologue analysis, the known, potential, and novel drug target genes of were found to be significantly conserved in . Our findings advocate that can be employed to express and functionally characterize difficult-to-express genes.