The food vacuole, or digestive vacuole, is an organelle found in simple eukaryotes such as protists. This organelle is essentially a lysosome. During the stage of the symbiont parasites' lifecycle where it resides within a human (or other mammalian) red blood cell, it is the site of haemoglobin digestion and the formation of the large haemozoin crystals that can be seen under a light microscope.[1]
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edit- ^ Banerjee, R.; Liu, J.; Beatty, W.; Pelosof, L.; Klemba, M.; Goldberg, D. E. (2002). "Four plasmepsins are active in the Plasmodium falciparum food vacuole, including a protease with an active-site histidine". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 99 (2): 990–995. Bibcode:2002PNAS...99..990B. doi:10.1073/pnas.022630099. PMC 117418. PMID 11782538.
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