A labour-saving method for the in vitro culture of Plasmodium falciparum.

The in vitro cultivation of Plasmodium falciparum requires at least daily changes of medium (Trager and Jensen, 1976). Addition of 50 mg per litre of hypoxanthine to medium RPMI 1640 permits to postpone the change of medium for up to 72 hours. A single subculture step is required to remove unlabelled hypoxanthine prior to the use of the cultured material in 3H-hypoxanthine incorporation assays. The method constitutes a considerable saving of time and medium.