A malaria parasite toxin associated with Plasmodium vivax paroxysms

Abstract

We have previously demonstrated a correlation between clinical paroxysms in Plasmodium vivax malarial infections and the appearance in patients' plasma of factors that kill blood stage parasites (gametocytes). This activity was, as previously shown, dependent on the presence in paroxysm plasma of tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), which acts in conjunction with other 'complementary' factors. Here we have identified a parasite component which is essential for this activity and functions as a 'complementary' factor together with TNF, and a third component of unknown origin. The P. vivax parasite component present in paroxysm plasma can be substituted for by a blood-stage schizont extract of either P. vivax or P. falciparum. This was demonstrated by restoring the parasite-killing activity to post-paroxysm plasma (from which it was absent) with the addition of the extracts together with TNF. The active materials in these extracts, however, are different from the natural components in P. vivax paroxysm plasma, i.e. while the schizont extracts are immunologically cross-reactive between species, the activity of the natural P. vivax toxin(s) in patients' plasma is neutralized only by the homologous antisera. Plasmodium falciparum infections have neither distinct paroxysms nor parasite-killing activity in plasma. The pronounced paroxysms of P. vivax infections may thus be due in part to a species-specific toxin(s).