Separation of Plasmodium falciparum Late Stage-infected Erythrocytes by Magnetic Means

Plasmodium Falciparum is a human parasite that lives exclusively within red blood cells. In the process of growing, it uses the molecules within the erythrocytes to feed off them, and since the molecules of iron within the hemoglobin would be toxic to the parasite, it takes them and places them into an inert crystal called hemin. This crystal of hemo confers some param magnetism to the parasites.

It is this paramagnetic property that is used to separate infected erythrocytes from those that do not carry a parasite inside. With the use of a magnet, a culture that has very low percentage of parasites can be concentrated to achieve almost a hundred percent paras. This separation of infected from uninfected red blood cells is very desirable in a number of experiments where a particular trait of the parasite needs to be studied without the confounding factors of surplus erythrocytes.