Alterations of serum proteins in mice acutely and chronically infected with Plasmodium berghei

Abstract

Mice infected for the first time with Plasmodium berghei showed marked alterations in levels of serum proteins and invariably died with high parasitemias. If such animals were treated with primaquine diphosphate early in the course of infection, however, most of the mice survived as cured animals and serum protein patterns returned to normal. Following reinfection of these cured mice, the latter again became acutely infected as evidenced by parasitemias and dysproteinemias. At the end of the first week of infection, however, an accelerated and exaggerated gamma globulin response was associated with the apparent elimination of parasites from the blood. Subsequently, most mice relapsed with infections characterized by periods of protracted parasitemia. Such relapses were generally non-fatal, showed unpredictable, variable parasitemias, and were essentially unaltered by superinfection attempts. Associated with this chronic state of infection was a generally increased gamma globulin fraction the level of which was variable and which could not be consistently related to individual parasitemias.