Fig. 1.

In vitro propagation of Plasmodium vivax patient isolate AMP2014.01. The fluctuation in growth of the parasites cultured in complete AIM V medium. Standard blood smear microscopy was performed to monitor parasite growth. Slides were made at intervals ranging from 2 to 15 days. Slides were made either after the medium was changed and the culture was resuspended, or right after the centrifugation to determine lysis and resuspending the pellet into fresh medium, but before adding Saimiri RBCs to readjust the haematocrit to 4%. With the patient parasitaemia of 0.13% on day 0, the culture parasitaemia fluctuated considerably during the first 60 days, and then maintained for the remaining culture period. DNA was extracted from cultured AMP2014.01 on days 86 and 202. PCR amplification and direct sequencing of PvDBP and PvAMA-1 segments was performed at these time points to enable comparison between these sequences and those amplified from the infected patient blood sample prior to in vitro propagation