Harvest of Plasmodium falciparum merozoites from continuous culture.

Spontaneously released merozoites were harvested from cultures in which 42-90% of the erythrocytes had been infected with mature forms of Plasmodium falciparum at the start of incubation. The mature forms had been extracted from asynchronous cultures by the use of Ficoll and Plasmagel gradients. As the mature forms consisted of both trophozoites and schizonts, merozoites were released into the culture medium over a long period of time. The synchrony of merozoite release did not appear to be improved by prior exposure of parasites to sorbitol. Over this prolonged period of incubation, the yield of merozoites was disappointingly low in cultures containing 2.5% of erythrocytes. At erythrocyte concentrations of 0.01-0.25%, 3-10 times more merozoites were released into the medium; 0.4-2.3 merozoites per initial mature form were harvested over a 15-19-hour period. In addition to merozoites, contents of the culture medium included intact erythrocytes, ghost cells, and other cellular fragments. Only intact erythrocytes were effectively removed from the medium by simple or Ficoll gradient centrifugation. Merozoite preparations that are free from host cellular material are important in the development of a human malaria vaccine.