Fig. 5

Changes in profile of neutral lipid species during development of P. falciparum gametocytes. a Neutral lipid profiles of red blood cells infected with different P. falciparum gametocyte stages. CE cholesteryl ester, DAG diacylglycerol, TAG triacylglycerol. Means and standard deviations of three independent experiments were shown. Unpaired Student’s t test was performed using GraphPad Prism 6.0. **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001. b Proportion of neutral lipid groups in RBCs infected with blood-stage P. falciparum stages. c Two-dimensional principal component analysis (PCA) of uninfected, trophozoite-infected and gametocyte-infected RBCs based on their neutral lipid composition. PCA results were plotted in two-dimensional plots that reflect the behaviour of the RBCs infected with different blood stage parasites (score plot, left graph) corresponding to the molecular lipid species (loadings plot, right graph). Ovals in the scores plot group corresponding samples of three independent experiments. uRBC uninfected red blood cells, Troph trophozoites, I–V gametocytes stage I to V