Parasite host response articles from across Nature Portfolio

Faecal microbiome transplant has been shown to be able to reduce Clostridioides difficile infection. Here the authors show that an intestinal commensal protozoan reduces C. difficile infection by inhibiting neutrophil recruitment and affecting arginine-ornithine metabolism.

Theileria parasites have evolved mechanisms to evade host cell defenses. Here, Villares et al use an anti-parasite drug to show how intracellular parasites sequester host eIF5A to escape elimination by autophagy pathways.

Blood and liver stages of malaria parasites can affect each other, but it’s not clear how this may affect live-attenuated whole parasite vaccination. Here the authors show that malaria parasite blood stage infection subdues new infection and vaccination by suppressing growth of its liver stage via host cytokines.

Here the authors use dual RNA sequencing to characterize host and parasite gene expression from 136 Malian children with symptomatic Plasmodium falciparum infection. They find that parasitemia levels correlate with neutrophil and T cell levels and that the child’s age correlates with innate immune gene expression as well as gametocyte levels.

Meyer et al. show that Toxoplasma gondii infection influences wolf behaviour in the wild, increasing risk-taking behaviours such as dispersing from a pack and becoming a pack leader.

A promising vaccine fails to provide durable protection against infection and clinical malaria in infants, a key malaria vaccine target population, in a phase 2b clinical trial. The need for a highly effective vaccine against malaria remains as urgent as ever.

Malaria causes many changes in human metabolism, although the extent to which these changes underpin pathology and the host immune response remains poorly understood. In this issue of Nature Metabolism, Abdrabou et al. show that malaria is associated with elevated levels of circulating steroids in susceptible children and propose that these immunosuppressive lipids exacerbate disease.

Duffy-binding protein (DBP) is the leading vaccine candidate for Plasmodium vivax malaria. Two studies express and characterise the first human monoclonal antibodies against DBP, induced by natural infection and vaccination, showing they have in vitro functional activity but target different conserved epitopes.