Introduction
Anyone who has had even a brief encounter with the world
of parasites will have quickly realized that the intricacies
of their life cycles are one of the most fascinating aspects of
parasitology. The ‘what’ of parasite life cycles is well understood
in most cases, and is a mainstay of parasitology
teaching. However, the ‘how’ still remains largely mysterious.
In a recent paper by Besteiro et al. [1], the role of two
fundamental cell biological processes – endosomal sorting
and autophagy – were examined in the life cycle progression
of L. major, in particular the differentiation of themammalinfective
stages called metacyclic promastigotes (Box 1)