immunology of infectious and parasitic diseases - XXXVII Congress ...

In vitro CULTURE SYSTEM FOR Plasmodium vivax
CAROLINE JUNQUEIRA (1),(2); RICARDO TOSTES GAZZINELLI (2),(3),(4);
KASTURI HALDAR (1)
(1) The Center for Rare and Neglected Diseases, University of Notre Dame, IN,
USA; (2) Centro de Pesquisas René Rachou, FIOCRUZ, Belo Horizonte, MG,
Brazil; (3) Departamento de Bioquímica e Imunologia, Universidade Federal de
Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil; (4) Division of Infectious Disease and
Immunology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, MA, USA
Introduction: Plasmodium vivax is estimated to cause approximately 100
million cases of clinical malaria each year, with many more exposed individuals
at risk for asymptomatic parasitemia. Although not as virulent as P. falciparum,
P. vivax nonetheless causes significant illness in Latin America, Asia and some
parts of Africa. P. vivax causes chronic anemia during infancy, and potentially
life threatening morbidities such as severe anemia, respiratory distress, renal
failure and splenic rupture. A significant obstacle in developing therapies and
eradication strategies against the human malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax
has been the lack of a culture system to propagate sufficient numbers of blood
and liver stage parasites. This is because P. vivax infects reticulocytes, which
are present in low frequency in peripheral blood (generally