Division and Transmission: Malaria Parasite Development in the Mosquito.

The malaria parasite life cycle alternates between two hosts: a vertebrate and the female mosquito vector. Cell division, proliferation, and invasion are essential for parasite development, transmission, and survival. Most research has focused on development in the vertebrate, which causes disease; however, knowledge of malaria parasite development in the mosquito (the sexual and transmission stages) is now rapidly accumulating, gathered largely through investigation of the rodent malaria model, with In this review, we discuss the seminal genome-wide screens that have uncovered key regulators of cell proliferation, invasion, and transmission during sexual development. Our focus is on the roles of transcription factors, reversible protein phosphorylation, and molecular motors. We also emphasize the still-unanswered important questions around key pathways in cell division during the vector transmission stages and how they may be targeted in future studies.