Role of a serum factor in enhancement of in vitro interactions between Plasmodium berghei sporozoites and hamster peritoneal macrophages.

Interactions between Plasmodium berghei sporozoites and hamster peritoneal macrophages were studied. Hamster serum was shown to enhance the percentage of sporozoites tha attached to macrophages, thus confirming previous studies by other workers using mouse macrophages and mouse serum. The enhancement factor within hamster serum was concentrated by a fractionation procedure consisting of ammonium sulfate precipitation followed by Concanavalin A-Sepharose affinity chromatography. This serum fraction has been shown previously to contain component(s) that bind to P. berghei sporozoites.