Characterisation of Kenyan Isolates of Plasmodium Falciparum by Isoenzyme Electrophoresis and Drug Sensitivity.
Abstract
Twenty one Kenyan isolates of Plasmodium falciparum
were characterised by enzyme electrophoresis and
antimalarial drug sensitivity.
For isoenzyme analysis, cellulose acetate and thin
layer starch gel electrophoresis techniques were employed.
P. falciparum isolates from malarious areas of Nyanza, Rift
Valley and Coast provinces were cultivated in vitro and used
in the isoenzyme study. The enzymes of uninfected red blood
cells served as controls.
The enzymes studied were: Glucose phosphate isomerase
(GPI)(EC 5.3.19), 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (6PGD)(EC
1.1.1.44), Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)(EC 1.1.1.27), NADPdependent
glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH)(EC 1.4.1.4),
Adenosine deaminase (ADA)(EC 3.5.4.4) and Pepti~ase E
(PEPE)(EC 3.4.11 or 13).
The sensitivities of cultured isolates to seven
antimalarial drugs (chloroquine, amodiaquine, quinine,
quinidine, mefloquine, pyrimethamine and sulphadoxine) were
examined by the in vitro radioisotopic methods of Desjardins
et al. (1979) with minor modifications.
Variant forms of the enzymes GPI and 6PGD were found in
the Kenyan isolates of E. falciparum. GPI enzymes appeared
as GPI-l and GPI-2 variants and 6PGD as 6PGD-l and 6PGD-2
variants. The level of enzyme polymorphism was greater in
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GPI than in 6PGD. The isolates from Rift Valley province
were found to possessa lower frequency of GPI-2 isoenzymes
than isolates from Nyanza and Coast provinces.
The other four enzymes (GDH, LDH, ADA and PEPE)
appeared to be invariant in all the isolates. ADA-2 forms
were found in all the isolates while the other three enzymes
appeared as GDH-l, LDH-l
isolates examined.
Considerable variation was found in the antimalarial
and PEPE-l types in all the
drug response of the 21 parasite isolates. The Rift Valley
province isolates showed significantly lower
susceptibilities to most of the antimalarial drugs tested
than the Coast and Nyanza province isolates. Coast Province
isolates were found to be marginally more sensitive to the
antimalarial drugs than the Nyanza province isol?tes.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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