Fig. 2: Morphological characteristics of osmiophilic bodies in mature gametocytes.
From: Comparative 3D ultrastructure of Plasmodium falciparum gametocytes
A–C Histogram of aspect ratio (A), volume (B) and sphericity (perfect sphere = 1) (C) of osmiophilic bodies (OBs) subdivided by sex. D–H Comparison of OB morphology in male (blue) and female gametocytes (red) N = 10. Significance of measured differences was tested with a two tailed t-test and significance was denoted with * (p < 0.05), **(p < 0.01) or *** (p < 0.001). SEM is denoted with vertical bars. Exact P-values for the different parameters are: Aspect ratio = 0.03, Sphericity = 0.00001, Particle number = 0.0034, Total OB volume = 0.0001, Average OB volume = 0.0001. I, J Representative micrographs of a female (I) and male (J) gametocyte showing differing density and shape of osmiophilic bodies (purple hue) in the respective sexes. Tail-like extensions of OBs in the male micrograph are indicated with red arrows. K Comparative rendering of OBs (purple) in all underlying female (red border) and male (blue border) gametocytes used for above analysis. Scale bars = 1 µm.
