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Cell. Infect. Microbiol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Malaria transmission relies on parasite-mosquito midgut interaction. The interactive proteins are hypothesized to be ideal targets to block malaria transmission to mosquitoes. We chose 76 genes that contain signal peptide-coding regions and are upregulated and highly abundant at sexual stages. Forty-six of these candidate genes (60%) were cloned and expressed using the baculovirus expression system in insect cells. Six of them, e.g., PF3D7_0303900, PF3D7_0406200 (Pfs16), PF3D7_1204400 (Pfs37), PF3D7_1214800, PF3D7_1239400, and PF3D7_1472800 were discovered to interact with blood-fed mosquito midgut lysate. Previous works showed that among these interactive proteins, knockout the orthologs of Pfs37 or Pfs16 in <jats:italic>P. berghei<\/jats:italic> reduced oocysts in mosquitoes. Here we further found that anti-Pfs16 polyclonal antibody significantly inhibited <jats:italic>P. falciparum<\/jats:italic> transmission to <jats:italic>Anopheles gambiae<\/jats:italic>. Investigating these candidate proteins will improve our understanding of malaria transmission and discover new targets to break malaria transmission.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fcimb.2021.654216","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,28]],"date-time":"2021-06-28T13:46:02Z","timestamp":1624887962000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":13,"title":["Studies of the Parasite-Midgut Interaction Reveal Plasmodium Proteins Important for Malaria Transmission to Mosquitoes"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"11","author":[{"given":"Guodong","family":"Niu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yingjun","family":"Cui","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xiaohong","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yacob","family":"Keleta","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jun","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1128\/IAI.00775-18","article-title":"Transmission-Blocking Vaccines: Old Friends and New Prospects","volume":"87","author":"Acquah","year":"2019","journal-title":"Infect. 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