ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Plasmodium evasion of mosquito immunity and global malaria transmission: The lock-and-key theory.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 81 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
81 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Genetic diversity, population structure, and drug resistance of Plasmodium falciparum in Kenya: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Malaria journal · 2025Pooled it
- Comparative permissiveness of Anopheles stephensi colony mosquito with an Anopheles arabiensis colony to Plasmodium falciparum gametocytes in Metehara, Ethiopia.Parasites & vectors · 2026Article
- Blood feeding, microbiota, and layered mosquito immunity: from pathway phenotypes to vector competence.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Genetic Diversity of the Malaria Vaccine Candidate PfRIPR in a High Transmission Region of Senegal.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Genetic surveillance of Plasmodium-Anopheles compatibility markers during Anopheles stephensi associated malaria outbreak.Parasites & vectors · 2025Article
- Worldwide genetic diversity of Plasmodium vivax Pv47 is consistent with natural selection by anopheline mosquitoes.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Mosquito immune responses to Plasmodium parasites that limit malaria transmission.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2025Review
- Plasmodium falciparum Pfs47 haplotype compatibility to Anopheles gambiae in Kisumu, a malaria-endemic region of Kenya.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Multi-locus investigation of Anopheles-mediated selective pressure on Plasmodium falciparum in Africa.Parasites & vectors · 2024Article
- Multi-locus investigation of Anopheles-mediated selective pressure on Plasmodium falciparum in Africa.Research square · 2024Article
- Late sporogonic stages ofbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Coevolutionary Analysis of the Pfs47-P47Rec Complex: A Bioinformatics Approach.Bioinformatics and biology insights · 2024Article
- Late sporogonic stages ofFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2024Article
- The African mosquito-borne diseasosome: geographical patterns, range expansion and future disease emergence.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Escaping the enemy's bullets: an update on how malaria parasites evade host immune response.Parasitology research · 2023Review
- NovelLancet regional health. Americas · 2023Article
- Role ofProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Knowledge, attitude, and adherence to malaria control guidelines and the prevalence ofFrontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Resolving drug selection and migration in an inbred South American Plasmodium falciparum population with identity-by-descent analysis.PLoS pathogens · 2022Article
21 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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8 authors.
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Abstract
Plasmodium falciparum malaria originated in Africa and became global as humans migrated to other continents. During this journey, parasites encountered new mosquito species, some of them evolutionarily distant from African vectors. We have previously shown that the Pfs47 protein allows the parasite to evade the mosquito immune system of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes. Here, we investigated the role of Pfs47-mediated immune evasion in the adaptation of P. falciparum to evolutionarily distant mosquito species. We found that P. falciparum isolates from Africa, Asia, or the Americas have low compatibility to malaria vectors from a different continent, an effect that is mediated by the mosquito immune system. We identified 42 different haplotypes of Pfs47 that have a strong geographic population structure and much lower haplotype diversity outside Africa. Replacement of the Pfs47 haplotypes in a P. falciparum isolate is sufficient to make it compatible to a different mosquito species. Those parasites that express a Pfs47 haplotype compatible with a given vector evade antiplasmodial immunity and survive. We propose that Pfs47-mediated immune evasion has been critical for the globalization of P. falciparum malaria as parasites adapted to new vector species. Our findings predict that this ongoing selective force by the mosquito immune system could influence the dispersal of Plasmodium genetic traits and point to Pfs47 as a potential target to block malaria transmission. A new model, the "lock-and-key theory" of P. falciparum globalization, is proposed, and its implications are discussed.
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