Malaria parasites adjust liver growth to match the timing of blood infection stages with the host’s daily rhythms

Egress from the liver into the blood occurs in sync with the time of day of host feeding in wild type hosts.

• Plasmodium parasites synchronize their development with the feeding-fasting rhythm of their vertebrate hosts.
• In wild type hosts, the timing of egress from the liver is aligned with the host's daily feeding schedule.
• Hosts lacking a canonical circadian clock do not show this alignment, indicating a dependence on the host's biological timing.
• Changing the duration of parasite entry into the bloodstream does not impact their multiplication rate during the first five cycles of development within red blood cells.
• This suggests that the timing of egress may be a strategy to optimize survival and transmission in response to future nutrient availability challenges.

Simplified