Abstract
The use of rodents as model organisms to study human disease is based on the genetic and physiological similarities between the species. Successful molecular methods to generate transgenic reporter or humanized rodents has rendered rodents as powerful tools for understanding biological processes and host-pathogen interactions relevant to humans. In malaria research, rodent models have been pivotal for the study of liver stages, syndromes arising from blood stages of infection, and malaria transmission to and from the mammalian host. Importantly, many in vivo findings are comparable to pathology observed in humans only when adequate combinations of rodent strains and Plasmodium parasites are used.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 93-101 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Current Opinion in Microbiology |
| Volume | 46 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2018 |
Funding
We thank Dr. Tobias Spielmann (Bernhard Nocht Institute of Tropical Medicine, Hamburg), Dr. Nisha Philip (Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, University of Edinburgh), Dr Gavin Meehan, Prof. Jim Brewer, and Prof. Matthias Marti (Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology, University of Glasgow) for careful comments and discussions. We thank Dr. Tobias Spielmann and Ashely Vaughn for providing primary images used in this work. MDN is supported by an EMBO Long term postdoctoral Fellowship (EMBO ALTF 1048-2016) and a Swiss National Foundation postdoctoral fellowship (P2BEP3_165396). VTH is supported by the Swiss National Foundation project number: 310030_159519 and by the SystemsX project MalarX, project number 51RTP0_151032.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Microbiology
- Microbiology (medical)
- Infectious Diseases
