Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về sinh học được đăng trên tạp chí sinh học Journal of Biology đề tài: volution of virulence in malaria. | Journal of Biology BioMed Central Minireview Evolution of virulence in malaria Bridget Penman and Sunetra Gupta Address Department of Zoology University of Oxford South Parks Road Oxford OX1 3PS UK. Correspondence Sunetra Gupta. Email Published 28 August 2008 Journal of Biology 2008 7 22 doi jbiol83 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at http content 7 6 22 2008 BioMed Central Ltd Abstract The pathogenesis of severe malarial disease is not yet fully understood. It is clear that host immunopathology plays a central role and a recent paper in BMC Evolutionary Biology suggests that the ability of the parasite to stimulate interleukin-10 production is a major factor and speculates on its impact on the coevolution of host and parasite. Plasmodium falciparum malaria is responsible for over 1 million deaths each year mostly in children under the age of 5 living in sub-Saharan Africa. And yet the number of malaria infections which go on to become life threatening is proportionally very small as the majority of these infections either remain asymptomatic due to the acquisition of clinical but non-sterile immunity after repeated exposure or progress to disease without lethal complications 1 . Viewed in an evolutionary context the existence of severe disease presents a population-level compromise for the parasite between the necessity of bearing factors that increase survival and transmission and the risk that these will stimulate a host immune response that will either curtail the infection or perversely cause the death of the host thus also spelling the end for the parasite . With the aim of identifying factors that may be relevant in the evolution of this balance Long et al. in a recent article in BMC Evolutionary Biology 2 have investigated the influence of the inflammatory response on the severity of disease in a rodent model of malaria and we discuss here how their results may .
