Receptor-Ligand Department, Fundación Instituto de Inmunología de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia.
PhD Programme in Biomedical and Biological Sciences, Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2019 Jan 14;8:454. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2018.00454. eCollection 2018.
Malaria, a disease caused by parasites, is widespread throughout tropical and sub-tropical regions worldwide; it mostly affects children and pregnant woman. Eradication has stalled despite effective prevention measures and medication being available for this disease; this has mainly been due to the parasite's resistance to medical treatment and the mosquito vector's resistance to insecticides. Tackling such resistance involves using renewed approaches and techniques for accruing a deep understanding of the parasite's biology, and developing new drugs and vaccines. Studying the parasite's invasion of erythrocytes should shed light on its ability to switch between invasion phenotypes related to the expression of gene sets encoding proteins acting as ligands during target cell invasion, thereby conferring mechanisms for evading a particular host's immune response and adapting to changes in target cell surface receptors. This review considers some factors influencing the expression of such phenotypes, such as 's genetic, transcriptional and epigenetic characteristics, and explores some host-related aspects which could affect parasite phenotypes, aiming at integrating knowledge regarding this topic and the possible relationship between the parasite's biology and host factors playing a role in erythrocyte invasion.
疟疾是一种由寄生虫引起的疾病，广泛分布在全球的热带和亚热带地区；它主要影响儿童和孕妇。尽管有有效的预防措施和药物可用于治疗这种疾病，但疟疾的根除工作已经停滞不前；这主要是由于寄生虫对药物治疗的耐药性以及蚊子媒介对杀虫剂的耐药性。解决这种耐药性问题需要采用新的方法和技术，深入了解寄生虫的生物学特性，并开发新的药物和疫苗。研究寄生虫对红细胞的入侵应该可以揭示其在与编码作为配体的蛋白相关的入侵表型之间切换的能力，这些蛋白在靶细胞入侵过程中发挥作用，从而赋予了逃避特定宿主免疫反应和适应靶细胞表面受体变化的机制。本文综述了影响这些表型表达的一些因素，如“s 基因的遗传、转录和表观遗传特征，并探讨了一些与宿主相关的方面，这些方面可能会影响寄生虫表型，旨在整合关于这一主题的知识，以及寄生虫生物学和在红细胞入侵中起作用的宿主因素之间的可能关系。
