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J Parasit Dis Diagn Ther 2017
Volume 2 Issue 3
Tropical Medicine 2017
Notes:
Page 16
September 7-8, 2017 | Edinburgh, Scotland
4
th
International Conference on
Tropical Medicine, Infectious Diseases & Public Health
ATTACKING MALARIATRANSMISSION
BY ISOLATING MALE AND FEMALE
GAMETOCYTES
Christopher Lloyd Peaty
a
, Dennis Shanks
a
and
Qin Cheng
a
a
Australian Army Malaria Institute, Australia
T
he transmission stages of Plasmodium falciparum-gametocytes
were the first malaria parasites identified. In order to
eradicate malaria it will be necessary to ensure that populations
of gametocytes can be cleared from patients in endemic areas.
Gametocytes are sexually dimorphic and both sexes are required
to complete the mosquito cycle of the parasite. Only the male or
the female gametocyte therefore, needs to be neutralised. Despite
much research, there are still many unanswered questions about
gametocytes and their biology. Here we report on new techniques
that have allowed us to differentially sort male and female
gametocytes to perform further research. These methods rely
on some unique biological properties of gametocytes that can be
exploited by the use of flow cytometry. Using specific dyes, pure
samples of either male or female gametocytes can now be sorted
using flow cytometry. These gametocytes can be treated with anti-
malarial drugs to determine if the drugs have gametocytocidal
effects. Several different classes of anti-malarials were used and are
reported. One of these drugs was once a common anti-malarial
drug-methylene blue. We are also able to report on a new proposed
mode of action for this drug. The treated gametocytes are able to
be membrane fed to Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes to determine
if they are still infective after drug treatment. These results will
be important as we continue to move towards the eradication of
malaria.
Biography
Christopher Lloyd Peaty completed his PhD in 2011 at the Queensland
University in Australia. He is now working as a Scientific Officer for the
Australian Army Malaria Institute. His work includes determining the causes of
artemisinin induced dormancy, looking at signalling pathways behind the switch
to gametogenesis in Plasmodium falciparum and also looking at causes for the
loss of HRPII in malaria species globally. He has 13 publications with over 370
citations and his H index is 11. He has presented at several major international
conferences including ASTMH and Woods Hole MPM. He spent 4 years serving
on the Executive Board of the Australian Society for Parasitology.
christopher.peatey@defence.gov.auChristopher Lloyd Peaty et al., J Parasit Dis Diagn Ther 2017