Genome size and DNA complexity of Plasmodium falciparum.

Plasmodium falciparum DNA was prepared from cells cultured in vitro in human erythrocytes. The P. falciparum DNA was mixed with a tritium-labeled Escherichia coli DNA standard, and the kinetics of reassociation were measured using hydroxyapatite chromatography. It was found that the P. falciparum genome size is equal to 3.8 . 10(8) nucleotide pairs, and that a repetitive component is present which contains about 10% of the DNA. The average repetition frequency in this component is 95 copies of each sequence.