Centre National de Recherche et de Formation sur le Paludisme, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Dipartimento di Malattie Infettive, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy.
Malar J. 2019 Mar 12;18(1):70. doi: 10.1186/s12936-019-2707-0.
While significant advances have been made in understanding Plasmodium falciparum gametocyte biology and its relationship with malaria parasite transmission, the gametocyte sex ratio contribution to this process still remains a relevant research question. The present review discusses the biology of sex determination in P. falciparum, the underlying host and parasite factors, the sex specific susceptibility to drugs, the effect of sex ratio dynamics on malaria parasite transmission and the development of gametocyte sex specific diagnosis tools. Despite the inherent differences across several studies and approaches, the emerging picture highlights a potentially relevant contribution of the P. falciparum gametocyte sex ratio in the modulation of malaria parasite transmission. The increasing availability of molecular methods to measure gametocyte sex ratio will enable evaluation of important parameters, such as the impact of drug treatment on gametocyte sex ratio in vitro and in vivo as well as the changes of gametocyte sex ratios in natural infections, key steps towards elucidating how these parameters affect parasite infectiousness to the mosquito vectors.
尽管在理解疟原虫配子体生物学及其与疟疾寄生虫传播的关系方面已经取得了重大进展，但配子体性别比例对这一过程的贡献仍然是一个相关的研究问题。本综述讨论了疟原虫性别决定的生物学、潜在的宿主和寄生虫因素、对药物的性别特异性易感性、性别比例动态对疟疾寄生虫传播的影响以及配子体性别特异性诊断工具的发展。尽管在几项研究和方法中存在固有的差异，但新出现的情况强调了疟原虫配子体性别比例在调节疟疾寄生虫传播方面可能具有重要意义。越来越多的分子方法可用于测量配子体性别比例，这将能够评估重要参数，例如药物治疗对体外和体内配子体性别比例的影响，以及自然感染中配子体性别比例的变化，这些都是阐明这些参数如何影响寄生虫对蚊子传播媒介的感染力的关键步骤。
