P falciparum gametocyte stages in bone marrow (BM) and peripheral blood (PB) detected by qPCR. (A) Prevalence and standard error of early, intermediate, and mature gametocyte stages. (B) Relative transcript copy numbers expressed as the ratio between copy numbers of gametocyte transcripts and P falciparum ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme transcript. The area of the circle is proportional to the number of observations, and mean copy number and 95% confidence intervals are indicated by horizontal lines. Samples positive for the housekeeping gene are included in the analysis: 136 BM and 25 PB samples.