Maintenance of the Plasmodium berghei Life Cycle

互联网2014-02-13

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Plasmodium berghei was probably first described in 1946 by Vincke in blood films of the stomach contents of Anopheles dureni. In 1948, it was subsequently found in blood films of Grammomys surdaster collected in Kisanga, Katanga; blood was passaged to white rats and became the K173 strain made widely available by the Institute for Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. A trio of fascinating papers describing the discovery and early analysis of the biology of P. berghei (1 -3 ) give an early indication of the natural and catholic host range of this parasite (Table 1 ), a property that possibly underlies the successful transmission of the parasite to a variety of laboratory hosts. Although the natural vector of P. berghei is A. dureni , early laboratory studies (3 ,4 ) showed that a wide range of colonized mosquitoes would successfully transmit the parasite (Table 2 ).

Table 1 List of Natural and Laboratory Hosts of P. berghei

Natural hosts	Laboratory hosts
Muridae
Thamnomys surdaster	Brown Norway rat (<4 wk)
Praomys jacksoni	White rat (<4 wk)
Leggada belle	Mouse
Saccotomus campestris	Thamnomys surdaster
Mastomys coucha	Grammamys rutilans
�thomys sp.	Ondatra zibethica (musk rat)
Pelomys frater	Hamster (good for gametocytes)
Lophyromys aquilus
Crocidura turba
Sciuridae
Unnamed
Carnassieridae?
Unnamed

See refs. 1–3 .

Table 2 Vectorial Capacity of Mosquitoes for P.berghei

Vector	Nonvector
Anopheles dureni *(1)*	Culex bitaeneorhynchus *(1)*
A. stephensi *(1)* (var mysorensis)	Aedes aegypti *(1,2)* ^a
A. gambiae *(1)*	Anopheles albimanus *(1)*
A. atroparvus *(1)*	A. aztecus *(1)*
A. quadrumaculotus *(1)*	A. concolor *(1)*
A. maculipennis (2)	A. coustani *(1)* var ziemanni
A. albimanus (3)	A. fluviatilis *(1)*
	A. funestus *(1)*
	A. hyrcanus *(1)*
	A. jamesi *(1)*
	A. pulcherrimus *(1)*
	A. splendidus *(1)*
	A. subpictus *(1)*

^a Produced oocysts (SP28 strain S. Keiberg) (see refs. 3 and 4 , and M.-C Rodriguez, personal communication).