The nutrient games - Plasmodium metabolism during hepatic development

© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)Malaria is a febrile illness caused by species of the protozoan parasite Plasmodium and is characterized by recursive infections of erythrocytes, leading to clinical symptoms and pathology. In mammals, Plasmodium parasites undergo a compulsory intrahepatic development stage before infecting erythrocytes. Liver-stage parasites have a metabolic configuration to facilitate the replication of several thousand daughter parasites. Their metabolism is of interest to identify cellular pathways essential for liver infection, to kill the parasite before onset of the disease. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on nutrient acquisition and biosynthesis by liver-stage parasites mostly generated in murine malaria models, gaps in knowledge, and challenges to create a holistic view of the development and deficiencies in this field.This work was also financed by la Caixa Foundation (HR17/52150010) to M.M.M.