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Abstract / Description of output
Aims
Malaria parasites exhibit daily rhythms in the intraerythrocytic development cycle (IDC) that underpins asexual replication in the blood. The IDC schedule is aligned with the timing of host feeding-fasting rhythms. When the IDC schedule is perturbed to become mismatched to host rhythms, it readily reschedules but it is not known how.
Methods
We intensively follow four groups of infections that have different temporal alignments between host rhythms and the IDC schedule for 10 days, before and after the peak in asexual densities. We compare how the duration, synchrony, and timing of the IDC differs between parasites in control infections and those forced to reschedule by 12 hours, and ask whether the density of parasites affects the rescheduling process.
Results and Conclusions
Our experiments reveal parasites shorten the IDC duration by 2-3 hours to become realigned to host feeding-fasting rhythms with 5-6 days, in a density independent manner. Furthermore, parasites are able to reschedule without significant fitness costs for them or their hosts. Understanding the extent of, and limits on, plasticity in the IDC schedule may reveal targets for novel interventions, such as drugs to disrupt IDC regulation and preventing IDC dormancy conferring tolerance to existing drugs.
Malaria parasites exhibit daily rhythms in the intraerythrocytic development cycle (IDC) that underpins asexual replication in the blood. The IDC schedule is aligned with the timing of host feeding-fasting rhythms. When the IDC schedule is perturbed to become mismatched to host rhythms, it readily reschedules but it is not known how.
Methods
We intensively follow four groups of infections that have different temporal alignments between host rhythms and the IDC schedule for 10 days, before and after the peak in asexual densities. We compare how the duration, synchrony, and timing of the IDC differs between parasites in control infections and those forced to reschedule by 12 hours, and ask whether the density of parasites affects the rescheduling process.
Results and Conclusions
Our experiments reveal parasites shorten the IDC duration by 2-3 hours to become realigned to host feeding-fasting rhythms with 5-6 days, in a density independent manner. Furthermore, parasites are able to reschedule without significant fitness costs for them or their hosts. Understanding the extent of, and limits on, plasticity in the IDC schedule may reveal targets for novel interventions, such as drugs to disrupt IDC regulation and preventing IDC dormancy conferring tolerance to existing drugs.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e12898 |
Number of pages | 33 |
Journal | Parasite Immunology |
Early online date | 14 Nov 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 14 Nov 2021 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- asexual replication
- biological rhythm
- circadian
- fitness
- intraerythrocytic development cycle
- periodicity
- plasmodium
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Parasite offence or host defence? The roles of biological rhythms in malaria infection
1/11/16 → 30/09/23
Project: Research
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Datasets
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Mistimed malaria parasites re-synchronise with host feeding-fasting rhythms by shortening their intra-erythrocytic development duration.
O'Donnell, A. (Creator), Greischar, M. (Creator) & Reece, S. (Creator), Edinburgh DataShare, 22 Jun 2021
DOI: 10.7488/ds/3065
Dataset