Transmissibility of a new Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 bank for use in malaria volunteer infection studies evaluating transmission blocking interventions

Sean A Lynch; Azrin N Abd-Rahman; Jenny M Peters; Juanita M Heunis; Jeremy S E Gower; Adam J Potter; Rebecca Webster; Helen Jennings; Susan Mathison; Nischal Sahai; Fiona H Amante; Bridget E Barber

doi:10.1038/s41598-025-97282-y

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Transmissibility of a new Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 bank for use in malaria volunteer infection studies evaluating transmission blocking interventions

Journal article

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Peer reviewed

Transmissibility of a new Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 bank for use in malaria volunteer infection studies evaluating transmission blocking interventions

Sean A Lynch, Azrin N Abd-Rahman, Jenny M Peters, Juanita M Heunis, Jeremy S E Gower, Adam J Potter, Rebecca Webster, Helen Jennings, Susan Mathison, Nischal Sahai, …

Scientific Reports, Vol.15, pp.1-10

2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-97282-y

PMCID: PMC12003780

PMID: 40240504

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Abstract

Malaria transmission

gametocyte

anopheles

oocysts

controlled human malaria infection

clinical trial

Transmission blocking activity is an important characteristic of antimalarial drugs, and can be evaluated in malaria volunteer infection studies (VIS). We undertook a pilot VIS to evaluate the suitability of a recently manufactured Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 bank (3D7-MBE-008) for evaluating transmission blocking interventions. Four adults were inoculated with P. falciparum 3D7-MBE-008 infected erythrocytes and administered piperaquine on days 8 and 10 to clear asexual parasitemia while permitting gametocyte development. On day 25, participants were randomised (1:1) to receive either 0.25 mg/kg primaquine (primaquine group) or no intervention (control group). Transmissibility was assessed by enriched membrane feeding assays on days 25, 29, 32, and 39, with transmission intensity (proportion of mosquitoes infected) determined by 18S qPCR. All participants were infective on day 25, with a median 94% (range, 12-100%) of mosquitoes positive for oocysts, and 76% (range, 8-94%) positive for sporozoites. In the primaquine group, mosquito infectivity decreased substantially between days 25 and 29. In the control group, mosquito infectivity remained high up to day 32, and persisted to day 39 in one participant. The P. falciparum 3D7-MBE-008 parasite bank induced blood-stage infections that were highly transmissible to mosquitoes and is therefore suitable for evaluating transmission blocking interventions.Trial registration anzctr.org.au (registration number: ACTRN12622001097730), registered 08/08/2022.

Details

Title: Transmissibility of a new Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 bank for use in malaria volunteer infection studies evaluating transmission blocking interventions
Authors: Sean A Lynch - QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
Azrin N Abd-Rahman - QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
Jenny M Peters - QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
Juanita M Heunis - QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
Jeremy S E Gower - Queensland University of Technology
Adam J Potter - QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
Rebecca Webster - QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
Helen Jennings - QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
Susan Mathison - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, UniSC Clinical Trials Centre
Nischal Sahai - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, UniSC Clinical Trials Centre
Fiona H Amante - QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
Bridget E Barber (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, UniSC Clinical Trials Centre
Publication details: Scientific Reports, Vol.15, pp.1-10
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
Date published: 2025
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-97282-y
ISSN: 2045-2322
PMID: 40240504; PMC12003780
Copyright note: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Data Availability: Data supporting the findings of this study are available in the Supplementary Information files and from the Corresponding Author upon request.
Grants: Malaria volunteer infection studies for the advancement of antimalarial therapeutics, 2016792, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute (Australia, Brisbane) - QIMR
Organisation Unit: UniSC Clinical Trials Centre
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991127004002621
Output Type: Journal article

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