Bioluminescence Method for Screening of Plasmodium Transmission-Blocking Compounds.

The sporogonic stage of the life cycle of spp., the causative agents of malaria, occurs inside the parasite's mosquito vector, where a process of fertilization, meiosis, and mitotic divisions culminates in the generation of large numbers of mammalian-infective sporozoites. Efforts to cultivate mosquito stages have proved challenging and yielded only moderate success. Here, we describe a methodology that simplifies the screening of much-needed transmission-blocking (TB) compounds employing a bioluminescence-based method to monitor the development of sporogonic stages of the rodent malaria parasite Our proof-of-principle assessment of the TB activity of several commonly used antimalarial compounds identified cycloheximide, thiostrepton, and atovaquone as the most active compounds against the parasite's sporogonic stages. The TB activity of these compounds was further confirmed by studies that validated our newly developed approach to TB compound screening.