The first part of my experiment was to find the lowest concentration of iodoacetate that would kill the parasite.
First, I made a stock solution of .1 molar. From the stock solution six different dilutions were made: 10mM, .1mM, .05mM, .01mM, .005mM, and .001mM. These different dilutions were placed in 96 well plates with the parasite. Control group was also placed in the same 96 well plates. After incubating the plate for twenty-four hours, 3H-phenyalanine was incorporated. After another twenty-four hours, the plate was harvested and the amount of incorporated radioactivity was determined.
The result of the first part of the whole experiment came out to be:
With 10mM dilution, zero percent of parasite lived
With .1 mM dilution, zero percent of parasite lived
With .05mM dilution, zero percent of parasite lived
With .01mM dilution, .695 percent of parasite lived
With .005mM dilution, 2.874 percent of parasite lived
With .001mM dilution, 5.854 percent of parasite lived
The control group (without any idoacetate) 6.494 percent of parasite lived
In conclusion, .05mM dilution is the lowest concentration of iodoacetate that would kill Plasmodium falciparum.
The second part of my experiment was to determine if separate stages show differential susceptibility of iodoacetate.
After gel separation where ring stage was separated from troph and schizont stages, I exposed them with .05mM of iodoacetate and repeated the same process for troph and schizont stages. During this experiment, same sources of parasite and dilution were used to cancel out any biases or any differences found in parasites and dilutions.
The result of the second part of the experiment came out to be:
In the ring stage, 7 percent of parasite lived
In the ring/early troph stage, 14 percent of parasite lived
In the troph stage, 5.3 percent of parasite lived
In the schizont stage, 4.2 percent of parasite lived
In conclusion, the schizont stage is most susceptible of iodoacetate than any other stages. This can be reasonable because schizont stage is the most active and needs the most energy than other stages. Thus, inhibiting glycolysis by iodoacetate would hinder the growth during the schizont stage.