Graduation Year

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.S.P.H.

Degree Name

MS in Public Health (M.S.P.H.)

Degree Granting Department

Public Health

Major Professor

John H. Adams, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Francis Ntumngia, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Dipak Raj, Ph.D.

Keywords

Electron Microscopy, Malaria, Molecular parasitology, Ultrastructure

Abstract

Malaria is a vector-borne disease and is a major global public health threat caused by the genus Plasmodium. Of the five species that infected humans, Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum contribute the highest rates of morbidity and mortality. Research efforts to develop antimalarial drugs and effective vaccines is imperative to the prevention of future cases. Plasmodium has three reproductive stages: sporogonic, liver, and blood. Sporozoites are injected into the human host from an infected female Anopheles mosquito, which travel to the liver to initiate liver stage malaria. Since few sporozoites are successful, the liver stage is a bottleneck of the infection process, providing a promising target for a vaccine. Infective sporozoites require weeks to develop but are short lived, while cryopreservation is a process of freezing biological samples that are used for future use. This study aimed to determine how cryopreservation impacts the ultrastructure of the sporozoite. In this project, sporozoites were isolated from the mosquito salivary glands, some samples were cryopreserved, which were then imaged using transmission electron microscopy. Areas of interest include the apicoplasts, peculiar membrane complex, and mitochondrion. Determining the effects of cryopreservation on sporozoite morphology can aid the production of a vaccine targeting liver stage malaria and contribute to the understanding for whether cryopreserved sporozoites are viable post-thaw.

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