Abstract
Malaria remains a significant contributor to the global burden of disease, with around 40% of the world’s population at risk of Plasmodium infections. The development of an effective vaccine against the malaria parasite would mark a breakthrough in the fight to eradicate the disease. Over time, natural infection elicits a robust immune response against the blood stage of the parasite, providing protection against malaria. In recent years, we have gained valuable insight into the mechanisms by which IgG acts to prevent pathology and inhibit parasite replication, as well as the potential role of immunoglobulin M (IgM) in these processes. Here, we discuss recent advances in our understanding of the mechanisms, acquisition, and maintenance of naturally acquired immunity, and the relevance of these discoveries for the development of a potential vaccine against the blood stage of Plasmodium falciparum.
Highlights
Malaria is a deadly disease caused predominantly by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum
Antibody Responses Against Plasmodium falciparum reasons for the failures of historical blood stage vaccine candidates are i) sequence variation in vaccine targets that resulted in parasite strain-specific responses [8, 9], ii) inability of the vaccine to elicit sufficiently high antibody titers necessary for protection [10, 11], and iii) quick waning of elicited immune responses [6, 12,13,14,15]
These results suggest that immunity against severe malaria is the result of antibodies targeting a relatively small panel of conserved PfEMP1 domains, providing support for developing a vaccine based on these pathogenic PfEMP1 domains
Summary
Malaria remains a significant contributor to the global burden of disease, with around 40% of the world’s population at risk of Plasmodium infections. The development of an effective vaccine against the malaria parasite would mark a breakthrough in the fight to eradicate the disease. Natural infection elicits a robust immune response against the blood stage of the parasite, providing protection against malaria. We have gained valuable insight into the mechanisms by which IgG acts to prevent pathology and inhibit parasite replication, as well as the potential role of immunoglobulin M (IgM) in these processes. We discuss recent advances in our understanding of the mechanisms, acquisition, and maintenance of naturally acquired immunity, and the relevance of these discoveries for the development of a potential vaccine against the blood stage of Plasmodium falciparum
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