Using Plasmodium knowlesi as a model for screening Plasmodium vivax blood-stage malaria vaccine targets reveals new candidates.

ABSTRACT: Plasmodium vivax is responsible for the majority of malaria cases outside Africa. Unlike P. falciparum, the P. vivax life-cycle includes a dormant liver stage, the hypnozoite, which can cause infection in the absence of mosquito transmission. An effective vaccine against P. vivax blood stages would limit symptoms and pathology from such recurrent infections, and therefore could play a critical role in the control of this species. Vaccine development in P. vivax, however, lags considerably behind P. falciparum, which has many identified targets with several having transitioned to Phase II testing. By contrast only one P. vivax blood-stage vaccine candidate based on the Duffy Binding Protein (PvDBP), has reached Phase Ia, in large part because the lack of a continuous in vitro culture system

SUBMITTER: Ndegwa DN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8279373 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature