Dantzler Kathleen W, Ravel Deepali B, Brancucci Nicolas Mb, Marti Matthias
Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Curr Opin Microbiol. 2015 Aug;26:17-23. doi: 10.1016/j.mib.2015.03.005. Epub 2015 Apr 9.
A renewed global commitment to malaria elimination lends urgency to understanding the biology of Plasmodium transmission stages. Recent progress toward uncovering the mechanisms underlying Plasmodium falciparum sexual differentiation and maturation reveals potential targets for transmission-blocking drugs and vaccines. The identification of parasite factors that alter sexual differentiation, including extracellular vesicles and a master transcriptional regulator, suggest that parasites make epigenetically controlled developmental decisions based on environmental cues. New insights into sexual development, especially host cell remodeling and sequestration in the bone marrow, highlight open questions regarding parasite homing to the tissue, transmigration across the vascular endothelium, and maturation in the parenchyma. Novel molecular and translational tools will provide further opportunities to define host-parasite interactions and design effective transmission-blocking therapeutics.
全球对消除疟疾的新承诺使得了解疟原虫传播阶段的生物学变得紧迫。在揭示恶性疟原虫性别分化和成熟的潜在机制方面的最新进展，揭示了传播阻断药物和疫苗的潜在靶点。对改变性别分化的寄生虫因子的鉴定，包括细胞外囊泡和一个主要转录调节因子，表明寄生虫根据环境线索做出表观遗传控制的发育决定。对性别发育的新见解，特别是宿主细胞重塑和骨髓中的滞留，突出了关于寄生虫归巢到组织、跨血管内皮迁移以及实质细胞成熟的未解决问题。新型分子和转化工具将为定义宿主-寄生虫相互作用和设计有效的传播阻断疗法提供更多机会。
