Quantitative imaging of Plasmodium transmission from mosquito to mammal

Rogerio Amino, Sabine Thiberge, Béatrice Martin, Susanna Celli, Spencer Shorte, Friedrich Frischknecht & Robert Ménard

Supplementary Fig. 1 (pdf 56K)
The number of sporozoites at the site of mosquito bite decreases with time.

Supplementary Table 1 (pdf 20K)
Lymph sporozoites end their journey in the first draining lymph node.

Supplementary Movie 1 (mov 3M)
Sporozoite gliding in the skin. Two time-lapse series showing 200 seconds of sporozoite movement in the dermis of a hairless mouse at 3 minutes and 19 minutes after a single mosquito bite. The maximum projections of the fluorescent signal at the end of the respective time-lapse series show that the sporozoite gliding velocity decreases with time. Image series acquired with an epifluorescent wide-field microscope.

Supplementary Movie 2 (mov 2M)
A sporozoite glides for 114 seconds with high velocity in the dermis, before slowing down upon encountering a blood vessel and invading the blood vessel wall; note the constriction (arrowhead) of the parasite at 282 seconds. After invading the blood vessel, the sporozoite rests several seconds inside the vessel before being taken away with the blood stream between 300 and 306 seconds. The red color represents projected fluorescent signals after injection of fluorescently labeled BSA, which was used to detect blood vessels with the spinning disk confocal microscope (BSA is taken up by endothelial and other dermal cells). The green signal of the sporozoite corresponds to a single confocal plane. Image series acquired with a spinning disk confocal microscope.

Supplementary Movie 3 (mov 5M)
A sporozoite glides in the skin for 106 seconds before slowing down its speed and displaying a moving constriction (arrowhead). From 130 seconds onwards, the sporozoite drifts sideways for several hundred seconds. A second sporozoite (entering the field at 83 seconds) is also seen drifting sideways. The fluorescent signal of the sporozoite corresponds to a single confocal plane. Image series acquired with a spinning disk confocal microscope.

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