Erythroid Progenitor Cell Line for Hematological Disease Applications

Plasmodium vivax (malaria) is a significant health concern in many parts of Asia, Latin America, North Africa, and the Middle East. There is a lack of continuous culture systems for this pathogen. The subject technology is an erythroid progenitor continuous cell line (termed CD36E) identified by erythroid markers CD36, CD33, CD44, CD71, CD235, and globoside. These CD36E cells are heterozygous for Fya and Fyb (Duffy antigen). Due to recent evidence that Plasmodium vivax (P. vivax) can infect erythroid progenitor cells (reference: YX Ru et al. and T Panichakul et al.), these cells can be potentially used for culturing P. vivax and other species of malaria. This in turn could aid development of malaria related treatments and/or products. In addition, the cell line can also be used for other hematological disease applications that involve red blood cells or red blood cell precursors. The CD36E cells also produce alpha, beta, and chi hemoglobin and therefore may be used for research involving hemoglobin.