Automated detection and staging of malaria parasites from cytological smears using convolutional neural networks.

Microscopic examination of blood smears remains the gold standard for laboratory inspection and diagnosis of malaria. Smear inspection is, however, time-consuming and dependent on trained microscopists with results varying in accuracy. We sought to develop an automated image analysis method to improve accuracy and standardization of smear inspection that retains capacity for expert confirmation and image archiving.

A single-cell atlas of Plasmodium falciparum transmission through the mosquito.

Malaria parasites have a complex life cycle featuring diverse developmental strategies, each uniquely adapted to navigate specific host environments. Here we use single-cell transcriptomics to illuminate gene usage across the transmission cycle of the most virulent agent of human malaria - Plasmodium falciparum. We reveal developmental trajectories associated with the colonization of the mosquito midgut and salivary glands and elucidate the transcriptional signatures of each transmissible stage.

NUMT Confounding Biases Mitochondrial Heteroplasmy Calls in Favor of the Reference Allele.

Homology between mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear DNA of mitochondrial origin (nuMTs) causes confounding when aligning short sequence reads to the reference human genome, as the true sequence origin cannot be determined. Using a systematic approach, we here report the impact of all potential mitochondrial variants on alignment accuracy and variant calling. A total of 49,707 possible mutations were introduced across the 16,569 bp reference mitochondrial genome (16,569 × 3 alternative alleles), one variant at-at-time.