The scientists also found that while the parasites are physically hidden inside the merosome, they further protect themselves with a biochemical cloaking device. They prevent the dying liver cell from broadcasting a chemical "death signal" that would normally tell a macrophage to ingest it.
"The parasite did not evolve this complex system for nothing," Ménard commented. "It is probably very important that the parasite not travel free in the liver."
If researchers could interfere with the formation of the merosome or restore the death signal, then immune system cells could stop most of the parasites before they reach the bloodstream--the place where they are most destructive.
How the parasites direct the dead liver cell to form the merosome structure and how that bag eventually bursts open in the blood are questions that remain to be answered.
But the power of using imaging to follow parasite movements inside live, infected animal hosts is clear. "It is now possible to follow in real time and quantitative terms the parasite in its host, and that is something we were only dreaming of a few years ago," said Ménard.
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Source:Howard Hughes Medical Institute