I'm hoping someone with experience working with P. falciparum in vitro can help me with this!
I'm starting in vitro work with P. falciparum, and focusing on culturing gametocytes. I'll be working with strain 3D7.
Through my reading I've found that 3D7 is prone to losing it's gametocyte-formation ability when kept in culture for too long. A lot of papers suggest keeping cultures at a low passage number and continually thawing new feeder stocks to circumvent the problem.
My question is, what is considered a 'low' passage number? None of the papers I've read has given an actual number.
Thank you in advance for any help!