Table 1. Comparative life cycle progression of the different parasite lines.

Parasite line	Blood-stage growth rate	Oocysts / infected MG	MG spz / mosquito	SG spz / mosquito	Prepatency [days]	Parasitemia d6 [%]
Pb WT	8.9	105	39 000	9 400	3.75	2.3 ± 0.4
Pfn+i mCh	9.2	90	38 000	7 600	3.5	1.7 ± 0.6
Pfn-i mCh	8.5	75	37 000	6 400	4	1.4 ± 0.1
Pf Pfn	10.5	75	36 000	4 300	4	1.7 ± 0.8
QNQ Pfn	9.2	80	37 000	7 400	4.5	1.7 ± 0.7
AAA Pfn	9.5	90	50 000	7 300	4.25	1.5 ± 0.3
	n≥8	n≥50	n≥3	n≥3	n = 4	n = 4

Analysis of parasite lines expressing mCherry-tagged profilin with or without introns or different variants of P. falciparum profilin. Median blood-stage multiplication rates were determined after injecting either 100 or 5000 blood stages intravenously into four C57BL/6 mice respectively. Oocyst numbers (mean) were obtained by counting the cysts of at least 50 infected mosquito midguts (MG) on day 12. MG and salivary gland (SG) sporozoite (spz) numbers (mean) were counted between days 17 and 25. For each parasite line, at least three different cages were assessed, and the resulting mean is displayed. Parasitemia on day 6 and prepatency (first day of detectable blood-stage infection) were determined for each line after four C57BL/6 mice were bitten by 10 mosquitoes.