Effect of antimalarial drugs on Plasmodium falciparum gametocytes.

Gametocytes are the sexual stage of the malaria parasite and are essential for transmission to the mosquito. Antimalarial drugs have been reported to affect gametocyte production in vivo, which leads to a potential increase in transmission. We used transgenic Plasmodium falciparum parasites expressing a green fluorescent protein tag in a fluorescence-activated cell sorting-based assay to measure the effect of 8 antimalarial drugs on gametocyte production in vitro. Exposure to antimalarial drugs resulted in an increase in the number of gametocytes in test cultures. Although a dose-dependent reduction in late-stage gametocyte viability was observed, none of the drugs tested statistically significantly reduced gametocyte numbers.