Fig. 1.
Current models of asexual blood-stage merozoite egress.A. The membrane fusion model of Winograd et al. (1999).B. The ‘explosive rupture’ model of Glushakova et al. (2005) in which the schizont forms a short-lived ‘flower’ structure.C. The ‘inside-out’ model (Wickham et al., 2003) in which PVM breakdown precedes RBC membrane rupture.D. The ‘outside-in’ model in which the RBC membrane is degraded first, allowing release of merozoites surrounded by the PVM, which is eventually degraded in an exoerythrocytic step (Salmon et al., 2001; Soni et al., 2005).