Extreme polymorphism in a vaccine antigen and risk of clinical malaria: implications for vaccine development.

ABSTRACT: Vaccines directed against the blood stages of Plasmodium falciparum malaria are intended to prevent the parasite from invading and replicating within host cells. No blood-stage malaria vaccine has shown clinical efficacy in humans. Most malaria vaccine antigens are parasite surface proteins that have evolved extensive genetic diversity, and this diversity could allow malaria parasites to escape vaccine-induced immunity. We examined the extent and within-host dynamics of genetic diversity in the blood-stage malaria vaccine antigen apical membrane antigen-1 in a longitudinal study in Mali. Two hundred and fourteen unique apical membrane antigen-1 haplotypes were identified among 506 human infections, and amino acid changes near a putative invasion machinery binding site were strongly associa

SUBMITTER: Takala SL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2822345 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature