Fig. 4

Possible effect of chloroquine on P. vivax blood-stage parasites. a The figure shows a simplified P. vivax infection containing uniform amount of parasites (black line) along their intraerythrocytic cycle (x-axis, in hours). The amount of mRNA produced by the different stages is represented in color (blue-rings, yellow-trophozoites, and green-schizonts) and well as the resulting RNA-seq profile that is dominated by the transcriptionally active trophozoites (right). b Upon treatment with chloroquine, all rings and schizonts are killed while the trophozoites are not affected. c Eight hours after chloroquine treatment, there are no new trophozoites, since the rings have been eliminated, and the trophozoites developing into schizonts die (dashed box), producing much fewer P. vivax reads by RNA-seq, but identical expression profiles