About the Cover
COVER PICTURE: Sporozoites are the transmission stage of the malaria parasite Plasmodium that is inoculated into the mammalian host by mosquito bite. Here the parasite must first take up residence in hepatic host cells and transform into the tissue stage before replicating and differentiating into merozoites, the stage that initiates infection of red blood cells, leading to malaria disease. Liver stages are the most poorly understood form of the Plasmodium life cycle. More than 50 years after their discovery the biology and antigenic repertoire of liver stages remains largely unstudied, mainly due to their experimental inaccessibility. The development of an axenic early liver stage culture will change this. The picture shows free liver stages of the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei in axenic culture captured at different points of transformation. The parasite on the top left is not yet completely transformed showing a sporozoite remnant, which gives the parasite a comma-like shape. In completely transformed forms nuclear division is apparent with 2 nuclei visible (blue) in the bottom panels. All transformation stages express circumsporozoite protein (red). The inner membrane complex (IMC) is progressively disassembled as revealed by staining with an antibody recognizing the IMC-associated protein MTIP (green). See related article by Kaiser et al., pp.(pages 1045-1050).
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