DOI: 10.5061/dryad.jt224
title: Data from: Timing of host feeding drives rhythms in parasite replication

description: Circadian rhythms enable organisms to synchronise the processes
 underpinning survival and reproduction to anticipate daily changes in the
 external environment. Recent work shows that daily (circadian) rhythms
 also enable parasites to maximise fitness in the context of ecological
 interactions with their hosts. Because parasite rhythms matter for their
 fitness, understanding how they are regulated could lead to innovative
 ways to reduce the severity and spread of diseases. Here, we examine how
 host circadian rhythms influence rhythms in the asexual replication of
 malaria parasites. Asexual replication is responsible for the severity of
 malaria and fuels transmission of the disease, yet, how parasite rhythms
 are driven remains a mystery. We perturbed feeding rhythms of hosts by 12
 hours (i.e. diurnal feeding in nocturnal mice) to desynchronise the host’s
 peripheral oscillators from the central, light-entrained oscillator in the
 brain and their rhythmic outputs. We demonstrate that the rhythms of
 rodent malaria parasites in day-fed hosts become inverted relative to the
 rhythms of parasites in night-fed hosts. Our results reveal that the
 host’s peripheral rhythms (associated with the timing of feeding and
 metabolism), but not rhythms driven by the central, light-entrained
 circadian oscillator in the brain, determine the timing (phase) of
 parasite rhythms. Further investigation reveals that parasite rhythms
 correlate closely with blood glucose rhythms. In addition, we show that
 parasite rhythms resynchronise to the altered host feeding rhythms when
 food availability is shifted, which is not mediated through rhythms in the
 host immune system. Our observations suggest that parasites actively
 control their developmental rhythms. Finally, counter to expectation, the
 severity of disease symptoms expressed by hosts was not affected by
 desynchronisation of their central and peripheral rhythms. Our study at
 the intersection of disease ecology and chronobiology opens up a new arena
 for studying host-parasite-vector coevolution and has broad implications
 for applied bioscience.
description: Fig 2
 dataFeeding nocturnal mice
 in the day time disrupts rhythms in body temperature and locomotor
 activity.mouse_tempactivity.csvFig 3, S2 Fig dataParasite rhythms are inverted in hosts fed during the day compared to the night.parasite staging.csvFig 5, S5 Fig dataRhythmic cytokines and chemokines during matched and mismatched malaria infection.Cytokines.zipFig 6 dataFeeding mice in the day time affects blood glucose regulation.glucose.csvS1 Fig dataFeeding mice in the day time does not affect body weight, pre- or post-treatment.weights.csvS3 Fig dataNo significant differences between treatment groups in the densities of parasites and the virulence of infections.paradens_RBC.csvS4 Fig data (a)Parasites suffer cost of mismatch to the host's SCN rhythms.additional_virulence_RBC.csvS4 Fig data (b)Parasites suffer cost of mismatch to the host's SCN rhythmsadditional_virulence_parasite.csvS6 Fig dataRing stage rhythms remain synchronous during rescheduling to the host rhythm.staging_S6Fig.csv