image: This immunofluorescence picture shows an arrested, mature malaria parasite inside its first host cell in the human body, a liver cell. Despite antibiotic prophylaxis a sporozoite enters a liver cell and forms many daughter cells, each containing a nucleus (small blue dots). The essential organelle of red algal origin, termed apicoplast (red), is targeted by antibiotics and can no longer form the typical branched and extended structures. As a consequence, Plasmodium merozoites emerging from the liver cannot infect and reproduce within the next target cells, host erythrocytes. This image relates to an article that appeared in the July 14, 2010, issue of Science Translational Medicine, published by AAAS. The study, by Dr. J. Friesen of Heidelberg University School of Medicine in Heidelberg, Germany, and colleagues, is titled, "Natural Immunization Against Malaria: Causal Prophylaxis with Antibiotics." view more
Credit: Image courtesy of Johannes Friesen