Employing Transgenic Parasite Strains to Study the Ca[2+] Dynamics in the Human Malaria Parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

Studying Ca[2+] dynamics in protozoan parasites is not an easy task. Loading of parasites with commonly used Ca[2+] fluorescent dyes (such as Fuo4-AM) remains as the major protocol to measure the Ca[2+] oscillations inside the cell. In this chapter, we describe an alternative method to study Ca[2+] signaling in Plasmodium falciparum parasite. This method employs the construction of transgenic parasites (through standard molecular biology techniques), selection of the transfected population, and use of those parasites in spectrofluorometric Ca[2+] assays.