Single View

Contact

Dr. Tobias SpielmannPhone: +49 40 42818-486
Mail: spielmann(at)bnitm.de

Malaria

| 02.03.2016

<- Back to: Communications

Malaria parasite filmed in 3D

Within two days a malaria parasite (green) grows inside a red blood cell (red) until it takes over the entire host cell. It produces daughter parasites, which infect new red blood cells (last image).

So far, its development could only be composed from many single snapshots. The movie confirms certain prejudices, others are abandoned. For example, the food vacuole of the parasite is not formed by a single large invagination of the outer cell membrane, and parasite proteins are not secreted into the surrounding red cell as packs inserted into a membrane but one by one entering preformed membranes already present inside the red cell.

Grüring C. et al., Nat Commun 2011, 2:165
Christof Grüring, Arlett Heiber, Florian Kruse, Johanna Ungefehr, Tim-Wolf Gilberger, Tobias Spielmann and external cooperation partners (see publication)