Disruption of the <i>B</i>. <i>bovis hap2</i> gene and cloning and phenotypic characterization of a <i>hap2</i> KO strain.

<p><b>A.</b> Growth curve describing the kinetics of emergence of the transfected parasite line <i>Tf-hap2KO-gfp-bsd</i> upon blasticidin selection. <b>B.</b> Detection of GFP expression by the transfected <i>B</i>. <i>bovis</i> clonal line <i>Tf-hap2KO-gfp-bsd</i>-<i>cln</i> derived from the parasite line <i>Tf-hap2KO-gfp-bsd</i>, left panel is <i>Tf-hap2KO-gfp-bsd</i>-<i>cln</i> and right panel is the non-transfected <i>B</i>. <i>bovis</i> wild type strain T3B. Scale bar: 5 μm. <b>C.</b> Growth curves of the <i>B</i>. <i>bovis Tf-hap2KO-gfp-bsd-cln</i> clonal line and non-transfected <i>B</i>. <i>bovis</i> strain T3B parasite line (wild type) showing similar replication kinetics <i>in vitro</i> without blasticidin selection. The “X” axis represents the percentage of infected erythrocytes in <i>in vitro</i> cultures and the “Y” axis the days after the initiation of the <i>in vitro</i> cultures.