ArticlePLoS pathogens2020
Experimental determination of the force of malaria infection reveals a non-linear relationship to mosquito sporozoite loads.
Article in PLoS pathogens, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 69 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mosquito-based malaria control through genetic, microbial and immunological innovations.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Article
- Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite loads in Anopheles gambiae s.l. across agro-ecological zones of Benin: a cross-sectional field study.Tropical medicine and health · 2026Article
- Compound effector genes suppress malaria parasite infections in gene-drive population modification strains of the African malaria mosquitoes, Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- Article
- Long-term stability and performance of Cas9/guide RNA-based gene drives in anopheline mosquitoes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Evaluation ofiScience · 2025Article
- Spatial and temporal distribution of four malaria vector species and their relative contributions to Plasmodium falciparum transmission along the south-north transect of Benin, West Africa.Tropical medicine and health · 2025Article
- Liver sinusoid constraints make random search of CD8 T cells for Plasmodium parasites efficient.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Biting time of day in malaria mosquitoes is modulated by nutritional status.Malaria journal · 2025Article
- Biting time of day in malaria mosquitoes is modulated by nutritional status.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- A model-informed target product profile for population modification gene drives for malaria control.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Single-cell analyses of polyclonal Plasmodium vivax infections and their consequences on parasite transmission.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Quantification of sporozoite expelling byeLife · 2024Article
- Single-cell analyses of polyclonalResearch square · 2024Article
- Revisiting the Plasmodium sporozoite inoculum and elucidating the efficiency with which malaria parasites progress through the mosquito.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Heterogeneity in killing efficacy of individual effector CD8Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Testing a non-destructive assay to track Plasmodium sporozoites in mosquitoes over time.Parasites & vectors · 2023Article
- IntracellularProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- From serological surveys to disease burden: a modelling pipeline for Chagas disease.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Plasmodium sporozoites are the infective stage of the malaria parasite. Though this is a bottleneck for the parasite, the quantitative dynamics of transmission, from mosquito inoculation of sporozoites to patent blood-stage infection in the mammalian host, are poorly understood. Here we utilize a rodent model to determine the probability of malaria infection after infectious mosquito bite, and consider the impact of mosquito parasite load, blood-meal acquisition, probe-time, and probe location, on infection probability. We found that infection likelihood correlates with mosquito sporozoite load and, to a lesser degree, the duration of probing, and is not dependent upon the mosquito's ability to find blood. The relationship between sporozoite load and infection probability is non-linear and can be described by a set of models that include a threshold, with mosquitoes harboring over 10,000 salivary gland sporozoites being significantly more likely to initiate a malaria infection. Overall, our data suggest that the small subset of highly infected mosquitoes may contribute disproportionally to malaria transmission in the field and that quantifying mosquito sporozoite loads could aid in predicting the force of infection in different transmission settings.
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