Journal article
Optimal assay design for determining the in vitro sensitivity of ring stage Plasmodium falciparum to artemisinins
SC Xie, C Dogovski, S Kenny, L Tilley, N Klonis
International Journal for Parasitology | Published : 2014
Abstract
Recent reports demonstrate that failure of artemisinin-based antimalarial therapies is associated with an altered response of early blood stage Plasmodium falciparum. This has led to increased interest in the use of pulse assays that mimic clinical drug exposure for analysing artemisinin sensitivity of highly synchronised ring stage parasites. We report a methodology for the reliable execution of drug pulse assays and detail a synchronisation strategy that produces well-defined tightly synchronised ring stage cultures in a convenient time-frame.
Grants
Funding Acknowledgements
This work is supported by grants from the Australian Research Council and the Australian National Health & Medical Research Council. We thank Dr Eric Hanssen, Melbourne Advanced Microscopy Facility, Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia, for generating the electron tomographic reconstruction of a P. falciparum-infected RBC included on the front cover of this Special Issue.