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Lymphocyte Transformation in Human Plasmodium Falciparum Malaria

Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Laboratory of Microbiology and Immunology, National Institute of Dental Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20014

Abstract

Lymphocytes from fifteen patients who had been infected with Plasmodium falciparum from 1 month to 15 years previously underwent significant in vitro lymphocyte proliferation in response to malaria antigen. Since 11 of these patients lacked demonstrable antimalarial antibodies, this indicator of cell-mediated rather than humoral immunity provides a more sensitive indicator of prior exposure to malaria. In contrast, lymphocytes from normal control subjects failed to undergo transformation to low concentrations of antigens. Only at higher concentrations of antigen were lymphocytes of control subjects also transformed, but to a significantly smaller degree than those of the patients. Since the antigen preparation consists of a heterogeneous mixture of materials, this presumably represents a nonspecific response to some components in the antigen preparation. These results suggest that thymus-derived lymphocytes are important in host response to human malaria.