Attempts to infect plant protoplasts with Toxoplasma gondii

The interaction of tachyzoites of Toxoplasma gondii with plant protoplasts was compared with their interaction with cultures of HeLa cells. Unlike the HeLa cells, the plant protoplasts were refractory to invasion under all conditions tested. The lack of invasion was not an artefact of the protoplast isolation technique. This is the first description of a cell type refractory to Toxoplasma invasion; hence possible mechanisms for the specificity of parasite-host cell interaction can now be studied.