Sarcocystis neurona and Sarcocystis falcatula: monitoring of schizogony in cell culture using fluorescent nuclear labeling

The nuclei of merozoites of Sarcocystis neurona and Sarcocystis falcatula were labeled with the fluorescent marker Syto®21. It was shown that the marker would label the parasites and that they would retain the marker throughout schizogony. Thus, there was sufficient marker in the daughter merozoites to make them easily visible with fluorescence microscopy. This technique will be helpful in studying the developmental biology of these parasites in vitro.