In vivo profiles in malaria are consistent with a novel physiological state

Abstract

Lemieux et al. (1) describe a reanalysis of our in vivo Plasmodium falciparum patient samples (2), supporting many of our conclusions (exclusive presence of rings, lack of distinct asexual phases in the clusters, a relation between Cluster 1 and gametogenesis). However, Lemieux et al. (1) fit the observed in vivo profiles as a mixture of gametocyte and asexual form mRNA (Fig. 2E in ref. 1), concluding that the discrete clusters are consistent with varying proportions of sexually committed but phenotypically indistinguishable parasites, reflected by the parameter α.