Synchrony in malaria infections: how intensifying within-host competition can be adaptive.

ABSTRACT: Malaria parasites exhibit great diversity in the coordination of their asexual life cycle within the host, ranging from asynchronous growth to tightly synchronized cycles of invasion and emergence from red blood cells. Synchronized reproduction should come at a high cost--intensifying competition among offspring--so why would some Plasmodium species engage in such behavior and others not? We use a delayed differential equation model to show that synchronized infections can be favored when (1) there is limited interference among parasites competing for red blood cells, (2) transmission success is an accelerating function of sexual parasite abundance, (3) the target of saturating immunity is short-lived, and (4) coinfections with asynchronous parasites are rare. As a consequence, synchrony m

SUBMITTER: Greischar MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4334120 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature