FIG 1.
Slender form (LS) and short stumpy form (SS) T. brucei rapidly deplete glucose. Parasites isolated from rodent buffy coats by chromatography were washed extensively in PBS and then resuspended (4 × 105 cells/ml for LS and 5 × 105 cells/ml for SS) in RPMIθ supplemented with proline and threonine and different concentrations of glucose. LS parasites (left column) were isolated after 4 days of infection and made up nearly 100% of the parasite population as determined by microscopy, while the SS samples (right column) contained a mixture of SS (∼90%) and LS (∼10%) parasites as scored by cytometry of PAD1-labeled parasites (not shown). (A) Glucose concentrations in the medium were measured through time as described in Materials and Methods and standard deviations from experiments performed in triplicate are indicated. (B) Parasite viability was scored by propidium iodide staining.