Figure 3.

Hyperbolic relation between mEVs released and parasitaemia with significantly increased parasitaemia levels in the young and elderly.

(a) Scatter plot of plasma mEVs and parasitaemia levels for the cohort (n = 175) recorded as having PD 2–4 days, with a rectangular hyperbolic function fitted to the data. The dotted red and black lines represent, respectively, the median plasma mEV levels for infected and uninfected samples in this study. A region of the same graph limited to mEV levels for corresponding parasite densities <300 parasites μL⁻¹ is presented inset. In (b), no correlation was found when parasitaemia was plotted against age (n = 175) for the same cohort on a semi-logarithmic plot, however the data was best fit by a parabola (second order (quadratic) polynomial, coefficient a > 0, opening upwards). In (c), infected patients in age groups <11 yo, 12–25 yo, 26–44 yo and ≥45 yo were compared for their recorded parasitaemia levels. In (d) the percentage of patients with mEVs above the median level for infected patients in this study (1.69 × 10¹⁰ mL⁻¹), is represented for three levels of parasitaemia, across the 4 age groups used in this study.