Fig. 5

The presence or absence of motile ookinetes (barrel-shaped, shown by arrows) of P. berghei in the midgut of An. stephensi mosquitoes in the control and E. cloacae^GFP-D (Test) group at 20–24 h after ingestion of an infected blood meal. Upper panels: Presence of P. berghei ookinetes are seen in the remains of digested red blood cells in the mosquito midgut in the absence of E. cloacae bacteria. Lower panels: Strong proliferation of E. cloacae^GFP-D bacteria correlates with a lack of ookinetes 20 h after ingestion of an infected blood meal with 10⁴–10⁵ parasites/µl in the midgut. The thick smear was stained by Giemsa. The bacteria in the dissected An. stephensi midgut (squares) were transferred to BHI agar plates and found to express GFP under the fluorescent (Fig. 3b) microscope