Host cell deformability is linked to transmission in the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

Gametocyte maturation in Plasmodium falciparum is a critical step in the transmission of malaria. While the majority of parasites proliferate asexually in red blood cells, a small fraction of parasites undergo sexual conversion and mature over 2 weeks to become competent for transmission to a mosquito vector. Immature gametocytes sequester in deep tissues while mature stages must be able to circulate, pass the spleen and present themselves to the mosquito vector in order to complete transmission.

Parallel bacterial evolution within multiple patients identifies candidate pathogenicity genes.

Bacterial pathogens evolve during the infection of their human host(1-8), but separating adaptive and neutral mutations remains challenging(9-11). Here we identify bacterial genes under adaptive evolution by tracking recurrent patterns of mutations in the same pathogenic strain during the infection of multiple individuals. We conducted a retrospective study of a Burkholderia dolosa outbreak among subjects with cystic fibrosis, sequencing the genomes of 112 isolates collected from 14 individuals over 16 years.