Malaria cycle in the liver (IMAGE)
Caption
Malaria parasites are transmitted to the vertebrate host through the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. Once inside the body, the parasite makes its way into the circulation and within minutes it reaches the liver, where the parasite has to differentiate and develop before it can infect the red blood cells. Liver stage development occurs over several stages starting with the infectious sporozoite, which upon invasion encapsulates itself inside a vacuole that it constructs out of the host cell membrane. The parasite then differentiates into the trophozoite stage, which includes DNA replication, and subsequently initiates massive replication, known as schizogony in Plasmodium parasites. Each infected liver cell gives rise to upwards of tens of thousands of parasites that ultimately enter circulation and specifically infect red blood cells. Liver stage development occurs at different rates among different Plasmodium species. For species that infect mice it generally takes nearly two days, whereas human infecting species develop from five to seven days (The figure was created with BioRender.com).
Credit
Stockholm University
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