Journal
TRENDS IN PARASITOLOGY
Volume 29, Issue 1, Pages 10-16Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.pt.2012.10.006
Keywords
Plasmodium; synchronicity; circadian rhythms; evolution
Categories
Funding
- Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
- NSERC PDF
- Wellcome Trust [082234]
- Centre for Immunity, Infection, and Evolution [095831]
- Jenner Institute
- James Martin School
- Royal Society
- EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH & HUMAN DEVELOPMENT [P2CHD047879] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BBS/E/I/00001048, BBS/E/I/00001015] Funding Source: researchfish
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An interesting quirk of many malaria infections is that all parasites within a host - millions of them - progress through their cell cycle synchronously. This surprising coordination has long been recognized, yet there is little understanding of what controls it or why it has evolved. Interestingly, the conventional explanation for coordinated development in other parasite species does not seem to apply here. We argue that for malaria parasites, a critical question has yet to be answered: is the coordination due to parasites bursting at the same time or at a particular time? We explicitly delineate these fundamentally different scenarios, possible underlying mechanistic explanations and evolutionary drivers, and discuss the existing corroborating data and key evidence needed to solve this evolutionary mystery.
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