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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Trends in Parasitology

Spit it out: rhoptry organelles in Plasmodium sporozoites

  • Thomas Bernard
  • Olivier Silvie
  • Carine Marinach
Open at sourcePDFDOICite

Abstract

Plasmodium sporozoites, the infective stage of malaria-causing parasites, colonize the salivary glands of Anopheles mosquitoes and are transmitted to a vertebrate host during a blood meal. Sporozoites are injected in the skin, travel to the liver and invade hepatocytes to replicate into erythrocyte-invading merozoites. In Plasmodium like in other apicomplexan parasites, invasion of host cells requires the coordinated secretion of apical secretory organelles, the micronemes and the rhoptries. This review highlights recent advances in unraveling the function of rhoptries in Plasmodium sporozoites. We discuss how genetic and imaging approaches uncovered a hitherto unsuspected role of rhoptries during invasion of the mosquito salivary glands, and established the conserved role of a rhoptry protein complex in cell invasion in both the mosquito and mammalian hosts.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{bernard2026spit,
  title = {{Spit it out: rhoptry organelles in Plasmodium sporozoites}},
  author = {Thomas Bernard and Olivier Silvie and Carine Marinach},
  journal = {Trends in Parasitology},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1016/j.pt.2026.09.011},
  url = {https://hal.science/hal-05848384v1},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Spit it out: rhoptry organelles in Plasmodium sporozoites
AU  - Thomas Bernard
AU  - Olivier Silvie
AU  - Carine Marinach
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/05
JO  - Trends in Parasitology
DO  - 10.1016/j.pt.2026.09.011
UR  - https://hal.science/hal-05848384v1
AB  - Plasmodium sporozoites, the infective stage of malaria-causing parasites, colonize the salivary glands of Anopheles mosquitoes and are transmitted to a vertebrate host during a blood meal. Sporozoites are injected in the skin, travel to the liver and invade hepatocytes to replicate into erythrocyte-invading merozoites. In Plasmodium like in other apicomplexan parasites, invasion of host cells requires the coordinated secretion of apical secretory organelles, the micronemes and the rhoptries. This review highlights recent advances in unraveling the function of rhoptries in Plasmodium sporozoites. We discuss how genetic and imaging approaches uncovered a hitherto unsuspected role of rhoptries during invasion of the mosquito salivary glands, and established the conserved role of a rhoptry protein complex in cell invasion in both the mosquito and mammalian hosts.
SN  - 1471-4922
ER  -