Final answer:
The Plasmodium life cycle includes several stages in mosquitoes and humans, with the Anopheles gambiae mosquito as the vector. Sporozoites are transmitted to humans, and after developing into merozoites within the liver and red blood cells, they cause symptoms of malaria. The cycle completes when new sporozoites in an infected mosquito are ready to infect another human.
Step-by-step explanation:
Life Cycle of Plasmodium and its Vector Anopheles
The life cycle of the Plasmodium parasite is complex, involving both a mosquito and a human host. When an infected Anopheles gambiae mosquito, the vector of malaria, takes a blood meal from a human, it injects sporozoites into the bloodstream. These sporozoites travel to the liver and mature into schizonts. After going through a process called schizogony, the schizonts release numerous merozoites into the bloodstream, which then infect red blood cells. Inside these cells, merozoites become trophozoites, which further develop to produce more merozoites. This stage often leads to the characteristic symptoms of malaria as infected red blood cells get destroyed, releasing merozoites and waste products, causing severe anemia and massive inflammatory responses.
Anopheles gambiae is the genus of the mosquito that transmits malaria. It is the primary vector responsible for the spread of Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of the Plasmodium species that cause malaria in humans. The final stages of the life cycle occur when a mosquito bites an infected person, ingesting blood containing Plasmodium gametocytes, which then complete their life cycle in the mosquito, eventually producing new sporozoites that migrate to the mosquito's salivary glands, ready to infect another human host.