Production of luminol-reactive oxygen radicals during Plasmodium vinckei infection.

We tested the ability of whole blood and enriched fractions of peripheral blood polymorphonuclear leukocytes obtained from mice during the course of infection with Plasmodium vinckei to produce luminol-mediated chemiluminescence in response to phagocytic and nonphagocytic stimuli. The chemiluminescence response of whole blood to all stimuli increased dramatically and nonlinearly as the infection progressed, and there was a concomitant increase (80%) and decrease (70%) in the total numbers of leukocytes and erythrocytes, respectively. The proportion of polymorphonuclear leukocytes in the total leukocyte population increased threefold. On a per cell basis and at a constant hematocrit, the chemiluminescence response of peripheral leukocytes from infected animals to phorbol myristate acetate or opsonized zymosan was only slightly greater than that of cells from uninfected animals. Polymorphonuclear leukocytes isolated from the blood of infected animals also showed no large increase per cell in chemiluminescence responsiveness. Thus, although leukocyte numbers increase during a murine malarial infection, there appears to be no major change in the capacity of individual peripheral blood leukocytes to produce activated species of oxygen. However, the physiological reduction in the total concentration of hemoglobin at high parasitemia, due to hemolysis and hemoglobin digestion by the parasites, increases the possibility of oxygen radical-mediated damage to tissues and intraerythrocytic parasites as a result of decreased antioxidant protection.