Plasmodium falciparum, a unicellular parasite that causes human malaria, infects erythrocytes where it develops within a vacuole. The vacuolar membrane separates the parasite from the erythrocyte cytosol. Some secreted parasite proteins remain inside the vacuole, and others are transported across the vacuolar membrane. To identify the protein sequences responsible for this distribution we investigated the suitability of the green fluorescent protein and luciferase as reporters in transiently transfected parasites. Because of the higher sensitivity of the enzymatic assay, luciferase was quantified 3 days after transfection, whereas reliable detection of green fluorescent protein required prolonged drug selection. Luciferase was confined to the parasite cytosol in subcellular fractions of infected erythrocytes. When parasites were transfected with a hybrid gene coding for the cleavable N-terminal signal peptide of a secreted parasite protein fused to luciferase, the reporter protein was secreted. It was recovered with the vacuolar content and the erythrocyte cytosol. The results suggest that no specific protein sequences are required for translocation across the vacuolar membrane. The high local concentration of luciferase within the vacuole argues against free diffusion, and thus transport into the erythrocyte cytosol must involve a ratelimiting step.Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes the most severe form of malaria, spends part of its life cycle in human erythrocytes. Here it resides within the so-called parasitophorous vacuole, which is bound by the parasitophorous vacuolar membrane (PVM).1 The vacuole constitutes a separate compartment in the infected red blood cell (iRBC) that is distinct from the cytosol of the parasite and from the cytosol of the erythrocyte, respectively (1). Most proteins secreted from P. falciparum are not released into an extracellular space but are transported to various destinations within the iRBC: the parasitophorous vacuole or the erythrocyte cytosol. Membranebound proteins are found in the PVM and erythrocyte plasma membrane (2, 3). It is completely unknown which information within a polypeptide chain determines whether a protein is transported across the PVM. Recently we described experimental evidence for a transport pathway that involves the release of secreted parasite proteins into the vacuolar space and translocation across the PVM in a subsequent step (4). This model infers that a sorting mechanism must operate within the vacuole that discriminates between vacuolar resident proteins and proteins destined for a location beyond the PVM (5). Sorting could involve two different principles: the retention of vacuolar proteins or, alternatively, the recognition of protein signals that mediate translocation across the PVM.A widely used experimental approach for the identification of protein targeting and sorting signals in eukaryotic cells is the fusion of putative signal sequences to reporter proteins and their subsequent localization in the transfected cell. Although...