Journal
BRITISH JOURNAL OF HAEMATOLOGY
Volume 161, Issue 2, Pages 262-269Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/bjh.12234
Keywords
Plasmodium falciparum; iron; labile iron pool; malaria; calcein acetoxymethyl ester
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Funding
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [1U01HD061235-01]
- National Center for Research Resources
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health [UL1TR000083]
- NCI Center Core Support Grant [P30CA06086]
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Iron is a critical and tightly regulated nutrient for both the malaria parasite and its human host. The importance of the relationship between host iron and the parasite has been underscored recently by studies showing that host iron supplementation may increase the risk of falciparum malaria. It is unclear what host iron sources the parasite is able to access. We developed a flow cytometry-based method for measuring the labile iron pool (LIP) of parasitized erythrocytes using the nucleic acid dye STYO 61 and the iron sensitive dye, calcein acetoxymethyl ester (CA-AM). This new approach enabled us to measure the LIP of P.falciparum through the course of its erythrocytic life cycle and in response to the addition of host serum iron sources. We found that the LIP increases as the malaria parasite develops from early ring to late schizont stage, and that the addition of either transferrin or ferric citrate to culture media increases the LIP of trophozoites. Our method for detecting the LIP within malaria parasitized RBCs provides evidence that the parasite is able to access serum iron sources as part of the host vs. parasite arms race for iron.
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