FIG. 1.

NOS enzyme activity in ex vivo PBMCs. Venous blood (3 ml) was obtained and PBMCs were collected from healthy Gabonese children (HC; n = 26) and children with mild malaria (MM; n = 19) or severe malaria (SM; n = 14). Cell lysates were prepared, and ex vivo NOS enzyme activity (in picomoles of citrulline per milligram of protein) was determined by measuring the conversion of l-[¹⁴C]arginine to l-[¹⁴C]citrulline. The graph shows the means ± the standard error of the means (SEM) of results from each of the groups. Statistical significance was determined by the Mann-Whitney U test. *, P value of <0.01 compared to results for HC.