Proceedings. Biological sciencesJan 7, 2011

Reduced survival of malaria parasites when their daily rhythms are disturbed

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Updated Mar 10, 2026

Abstract

Perturbation of parasite rhythms results in a twofold cost to the production of replicating and transmission stages.

Circadian rhythms in parasites may influence their ability to survive within hosts and successfully transmit to new hosts.
The malaria parasite, Plasmodium chabaudi, exhibits cyclical infection patterns linked to its biological clock.
Synchronization with host circadian rhythms is associated with enhanced fitness in the context of host-parasite interactions.
This study highlights the potential adaptive value of maintaining circadian rhythms for parasites.

Simplified

Circadian biology assumes that biological rhythms maximize fitness by enabling organisms to coordinate with their environment. Despite circadian clocks being such a widespread phenomenon, demonstrating the fitness benefits of temporal coordination is challenging and such studies are rare. Here, we tested the consequences--for parasites--of being temporally mismatched to host circadian rhythms using the rodent malaria parasite, Plasmodium chabaudi. The cyclical nature of malaria infections is well known, as the cell cycles across parasite species last a multiple of approximately 24 h, but the evolutionary explanations for periodicity are poorly understood. We demonstrate that perturbation of parasite rhythms results in a twofold cost to the production of replicating and transmission stages. Thus, synchronization with host rhythms influences in-host survival and between-host transmission potential, revealing a role for circadian rhythms in the evolution of host-parasite interactions. More generally, our results provide a demonstration of the adaptive value of circadian rhythms and the utility of using an evolutionary framework to understand parasite traits.

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Reduced survival of malaria parasites when their daily rhythms are disturbed

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