Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 6, 2026

Phenotypic Analysis of Rodent Malaria Parasite Asexual and Sexual Blood Stages and Mosquito Stages
Published on: May 30, 2019
Periodicity and synchronization in blood-stage malaria infection
Ying Su1, Shigui Ruan, Junjie Wei
1Department of Mathematics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, Heilongjiang, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Malaria fever is highly periodic and is associated with the parasite replication cycles in red blood cells. The existence of periodicity in malaria infection demonstrates that parasite replication in different red blood cells is synchronized. In this article, rigorous mathematical analysis of an age-structured human malaria model of infected red blood cells (Rouzine and McKenzie, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100:3473-3478, 2003) is provided and the synchronization of Plasmodium falciparum erythrocytic stages is investigated. By using the replication rate as the bifurcation parameter, the existence of Hopf bifurcation in the age-structured malaria infection model is obtained. Numerical simulations indicate that synchronization with regular periodic oscillations (of period 48 h) occurs when the replication rate increases. Therefore, Kwiatkowski and Nowak's observation (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 88:5111-5113, 1991) that synchronization could be generated at modest replication rates is confirmed.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Malaria
Symbiosis
Diversity of Protists II
Patterns of Fever

