Plasmodium sporozoite search strategy to locate hotspots of blood vessel invasion

Pauline Formaglio, Marina E. Wosniack, Raphael M. Tromer, Jaderson G. Polli, Yuri B. Matos, Hang Zhong, Ernesto P. Raposo, Marcos G. E. Luz () and Rogerio Amino ()
Additional contact information
Pauline Formaglio: Université Paris Cité, Malaria Infection and Immunity Unit
Marina E. Wosniack: Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Raphael M. Tromer: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte
Jaderson G. Polli: Universidade Federal do Paraná
Yuri B. Matos: Universidade Federal do Paraná
Hang Zhong: Université Paris Cité, Malaria Infection and Immunity Unit
Ernesto P. Raposo: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
Marcos G. E. Luz: Universidade Federal do Paraná
Rogerio Amino: Université Paris Cité, Malaria Infection and Immunity Unit

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Plasmodium sporozoites actively migrate in the dermis and enter blood vessels to infect the liver. Despite their importance for malaria infection, little is known about these cutaneous processes. We combine intravital imaging in a rodent malaria model and statistical methods to unveil the parasite strategy to reach the bloodstream. We determine that sporozoites display a high-motility mode with a superdiffusive Lévy-like pattern known to optimize the location of scarce targets. When encountering blood vessels, sporozoites frequently switch to a subdiffusive low-motility behavior associated with probing for intravasation hotspots, marked by the presence of pericytes. Hence, sporozoites present anomalous diffusive motility, alternating between superdiffusive tissue exploration and subdiffusive local vessel exploitation, thus optimizing the sequential tasks of seeking blood vessels and pericyte-associated sites of privileged intravasation.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38706-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-38706-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38706-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().