Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 May 2018
It has been estimated that up to a third of global malaria deaths may be attributable to malarial anaemia, with children and pregnant women being those most severely affected. An inefficient erythropoietic response to the destruction of both infected and uninfected erythrocytes in infections with Plasmodium spp. contributes significantly to the development and persistence of such anaemia. The underlying mechanisms, which could involve both direct inhibition of erythropoiesis by parasite-derived factors and indirect inhibition as a result of modulation of the immune response, remain poorly understood. We found parasite-derived factors in conditioned medium (CM) of blood-stage Plasmodium falciparum and crude isolates of parasite haemozoin directly to inhibit erythropoiesis in an ex vivo model based on peripheral blood haematopoietic stem cells. Erythropoiesis-inhibiting activity was detected in a fraction of CM that was sensitive to heat inactivation and protease digestion. Erythropoiesis was also inhibited by crude parasite haemozoin but not by detergent-treated, heat-inactivated or protease-digested haemozoin. These results suggest that the erythropoiesis-inhibiting activity in both cases is mediated by proteins or protein-containing biomolecules and may offer new leads to the treatment of malarial anaemia.
Present address: Daniela Boehm, School of Food Science and Environmental Health, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin 1, Ireland.