Lipid Synthesis from Glucose Carbon by Plasmodium Berghei, in Vitro *

Abstract

Summary Intraerythrocytic Plasmodium berghei readily incorporated labeled glucose carbon into lipids in vitro. Essentially all of the incorporation represented phospholipid synthesis, mainly cephalins. The glucose carbon entering phospholipids did so primarily by way of α-glycerol phosphate since less than 5% of the total incorporation represented fatty-acid synthesis. The results suggest that the parasite exhibits at least a partial dependence upon its environment for a source of fatty acid.