Mota Maria M, Hafalla Julius C R, Rodriguez Ana
Department of Pathology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA.
Nat Med. 2002 Nov;8(11):1318-22. doi: 10.1038/nm785. Epub 2002 Oct 15.
Plasmodium sporozoites, the infective stage of the malaria parasite transmitted by mosquitoes, migrate through several hepatocytes before infecting a final one. Migration through hepatocytes occurs by breaching their plasma membranes, and final infection takes place with the formation of a vacuole around the sporozoite. Once in the liver, sporozoites have already reached their target cells, making migration through hepatocytes prior to infection seem unnecessary. Here we show that this migration is required for infection of hepatocytes. Migration through host cells, but not passive contact with hepatocytes, induces the exocytosis of sporozoite apical organelles, a prerequisite for infection with formation of a vacuole. Sporozoite activation induced by migration through host cells is an essential step of Plasmodium life cycle.
疟原虫的子孢子是由蚊子传播的疟疾寄生虫的感染阶段，在感染最后一个肝细胞之前，它会穿过几个肝细胞。穿过肝细胞是通过破坏它们的质膜来实现的，最终感染是在子孢子周围形成一个液泡时发生的。一旦进入肝脏，子孢子就已经到达了它们的靶细胞，这使得感染前穿过肝细胞的迁移似乎没有必要。在这里，我们表明这种迁移是肝细胞感染所必需的。穿过宿主细胞的迁移，而不是与肝细胞的被动接触，会诱导子孢子顶端细胞器的胞吐作用，这是形成液泡进行感染的先决条件。通过宿主细胞迁移诱导的子孢子激活是疟原虫生命周期的一个关键步骤。
