Plasmodium ovale: in vitro development of hepatic stages

Primary cultures of human hepatocytes, a culture-derived clone from the human hepatoma Hep G2 line, and cultured rat hepatocytes were inoculated in vitro with Plasmodium ovale sporozoites extracted from Anopheles stephensi, An. gambiae, and An. dirus mosquitoes. Penetration and differentiation of P. ovale sporozoites into trophozoite stage parasites occurred in all three cell types, but with a lower transformation rate in the Hep G2 cell line than in the primary cultured hepatocytes. Further maturation was obtained only in the human hepatocytes, in which the parasites were uninucleate until the third day after infection, before development to 60 micron in length by the eighth day. Additionally, this culture system was used to assess the ability of an anti-P. ovale sporozoite monoclonal antibody to inhibit penetration of sporozoites into hepatocytes and to detect sporozoite determinants in the maturing liver stage parasites.