Uptake of Plasmodium falciparum Gametocytes During Mosquito Bloodmeal by Direct and Membrane Feeding.

ABSTRACT: Plasmodium falciparum remains one of the leading causes of child mortality, and nearly half of the world's population is at risk of contracting malaria. While pathogenesis results from replication of asexual forms in human red blood cells, it is the sexually differentiated forms, gametocytes, which are responsible for the spread of the disease. For transmission to succeed, both mature male and female gametocytes must be taken up by a female Anopheles mosquito during its blood meal for subsequent differentiation into gametes and mating inside the mosquito gut. Observed circulating numbers of gametocytes in the human host are often surprisingly low. A pre-fertilization behavior, such as skin sequestration, has been hypothesized to explain the efficiency of human-to-mosquito tra

SUBMITTER: Talman AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7062676 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature