Plasmodium falciparum malaria originated in Africa and became global as humans migrated to other continents. During this journey, parasites encountered new mosquito species, some of them evolutionarily distant from African vectors. We have previously shown that the Pfs47 protein allows the parasite to evade the mosquito immune system of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes. Here, we investigated the role of Pfs47-mediated immune evasion in the adaptation of P. falciparum to evolutionarily distant mosquito species. We found that P. falciparum isolates from Africa, Asia, or the Americas have low compatibility to malaria vectors from a different continent, an effect that is mediated by the mosquito immune system. We identified 42 different haplotypes of Pfs47 that have a strong geographic population structure and much lower haplotype diversity outside Africa. Replacement of the Pfs47 haplotypes in a P. falciparum isolate is sufficient to make it compatible to a different mosquito species. Those parasites that express a Pfs47 haplotype compatible with a given vector evade antiplasmodial immunity and survive. We propose that Pfs47-mediated immune evasion has been critical for the globalization of P. falciparum malaria as parasites adapted to new vector species. Our findings predict that this ongoing selective force by the mosquito immune system could influence the dispersal of Plasmodium genetic traits and point to Pfs47 as a potential target to block malaria transmission. A new model, the "lock-and-key theory" of P. falciparum globalization, is proposed, and its implications are discussed. malaria globalization | immune evasion | anopheles immunity | Plasmodium selection | Pfs47

Tsetse flies are the sole vectors of human African trypanosomiasis throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Both sexes of adult tsetse feed exclusively on blood and contribute to disease transmission. Notable differences between tsetse and other disease vectors include obligate microbial symbioses, viviparous reproduction, and lactation. Here, we describe the sequence and annotation of the 366-megabase Glossina morsitans morsitans genome. Analysis of the genome and the 12,308 predicted protein–encoding genes led to multiple discoveries, including chromosomal integrations of bacterial (Wolbachia) genome sequences, a family of lactation-specific proteins, reduced complement of host pathogen recognition proteins, and reduced olfaction/chemosensory associated genes. These genome data provide a foundation for research into trypanosomiasis prevention and yield important insights with broad implications for multiple aspects of tsetse biology.

The malaria parasite, Plasmodium, must survive and develop in the mosquito vector to be successfully transmitted to a new host. The Plasmodium falciparum Pfs47 gene is critical for malaria transmission. Parasites that express Pfs47 (NF54 WT) evade mosquito immunity and survive, whereas Pfs47 knockouts (KO) are efficiently eliminated by the complement-like system. Two alternative approaches were used to investigate the mechanism of action of Pfs47 on immune evasion. First, we examined whether Pfs47 affected signal transduction pathways mediating mosquito immune responses, and show that the Jun-N-terminal kinase (JNK) pathway is a key mediator of Anopheles gambiae antiplasmodial responses to P. falciparum infection and that Pfs47 disrupts JNK signaling. Second, we used microarrays to compare the global transcriptional responses of A. gambiae midguts to infection with WT and KO parasites. The presence of Pfs47 results in broad and profound changes in gene expression in response to infection that are already evident 12 h postfeeding, but become most prominent at 26 h postfeeding, the time when ookinetes invade the mosquito midgut. Silencing of 15 differentially expressed candidate genes identified caspase-S2 as a key effector of Plasmodium elimination in parasites lacking Pfs47. We provide experimental evidence that JNK pathway regulates activation of caspases in Plasmodium-invaded midgut cells, and that caspase activation is required to trigger midgut epithelial nitration. Pfs47 alters the cell death pathway of invaded midgut cells by disrupting JNK signaling and prevents the activation of several caspases, resulting in an ineffective nitration response that makes the parasite undetectable by the mosquito complement-like system.