Reporter : Tang Yichen
Publisher : China Science Daily
Ref :http://news.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2020/4/438787.shtm
Translation using Google
Image : New research has discovered an antibody, usually found in children with natural immunity to severe malaria, which attacks a special malaria protein called PfGARP. Image source: Kurtis Lab / Big Ocean
On 22 April 2020, a study published by Nature showed that researchers screened blood samples of children with innate immune resistance to severe malaria and found an antibody against the special malaria protein PfGARP protects children from severe malaria.
Malaria is a parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitoes that kills nearly 500,000 people every year. Previous efforts to develop anti-malarial vaccines have had only limited success.
The study lasted nearly 20 years and began with an epidemiological study led by Michal Fried and Patrick Duffy of the National Institute of Health. Since 2001, they have begun to recruit a group of children in Tanzania. These children were included in the study as soon as they were born, and the researchers followed them for many years to see who among them had a naturally acquired immune response to malaria.
Finally, the Kurtis team selected 12 drug-resistant and 14 susceptible children from the Tanzania cohort. The researchers observed blood samples collected from children around the age of two, and children of this age appeared to have naturally acquired immunity. The researchers used a complicated method to introduce malaria proteins into each blood sample one by one in order to find any antibodies for specific proteins present in the immune sample rather than the susceptible sample, and found that PfGARP is a potential for resistance factor.
Laboratory tests have shown that PfGARP antibodies seem to activate the self-destructive mechanism of malaria, causing parasites parasitic in human red blood cells to undergo a programmed cell death. The researchers then tested whether the antibody response to PfGARP was related to immunity in a large sample of 246 children. They found that children without anti-PfGARP antibodies were 2.5 times more likely to have severe malaria than children with antibodies.
Researchers say that human vaccine trials may be years away, and it is impossible to determine whether it will be effective. However, the research team said that there is reason to believe that this new strategy may succeed where others fail. This is because it attacks the parasite at different times than other vaccines during the infection cycle.
An existing vaccine aimed at the first stage, aimed at preventing liver infections, has limited effectiveness. Kurtis said that part of the reason is that the time window for intervention is too small. "The parasite takes only 5 minutes from the mosquito to the liver," he said. "Because it is very fast, it needs a lot of antibodies to stop it. If only one spore enters, you have malaria."
This new vaccine is aimed at the trophozoite stage, which can last up to one day. The researchers hope that the longer the intervention, the less antibody will be needed to kill the parasites, and a more effective vaccine will be developed.
Related paper information: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2220-1
Publisher : China Science Daily
Ref :http://news.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2020/4/438787.shtm
Translation using Google
Image : New research has discovered an antibody, usually found in children with natural immunity to severe malaria, which attacks a special malaria protein called PfGARP. Image source: Kurtis Lab / Big Ocean
On 22 April 2020, a study published by Nature showed that researchers screened blood samples of children with innate immune resistance to severe malaria and found an antibody against the special malaria protein PfGARP protects children from severe malaria.
Malaria is a parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitoes that kills nearly 500,000 people every year. Previous efforts to develop anti-malarial vaccines have had only limited success.
The study lasted nearly 20 years and began with an epidemiological study led by Michal Fried and Patrick Duffy of the National Institute of Health. Since 2001, they have begun to recruit a group of children in Tanzania. These children were included in the study as soon as they were born, and the researchers followed them for many years to see who among them had a naturally acquired immune response to malaria.
Finally, the Kurtis team selected 12 drug-resistant and 14 susceptible children from the Tanzania cohort. The researchers observed blood samples collected from children around the age of two, and children of this age appeared to have naturally acquired immunity. The researchers used a complicated method to introduce malaria proteins into each blood sample one by one in order to find any antibodies for specific proteins present in the immune sample rather than the susceptible sample, and found that PfGARP is a potential for resistance factor.
Laboratory tests have shown that PfGARP antibodies seem to activate the self-destructive mechanism of malaria, causing parasites parasitic in human red blood cells to undergo a programmed cell death. The researchers then tested whether the antibody response to PfGARP was related to immunity in a large sample of 246 children. They found that children without anti-PfGARP antibodies were 2.5 times more likely to have severe malaria than children with antibodies.
Researchers say that human vaccine trials may be years away, and it is impossible to determine whether it will be effective. However, the research team said that there is reason to believe that this new strategy may succeed where others fail. This is because it attacks the parasite at different times than other vaccines during the infection cycle.
An existing vaccine aimed at the first stage, aimed at preventing liver infections, has limited effectiveness. Kurtis said that part of the reason is that the time window for intervention is too small. "The parasite takes only 5 minutes from the mosquito to the liver," he said. "Because it is very fast, it needs a lot of antibodies to stop it. If only one spore enters, you have malaria."
This new vaccine is aimed at the trophozoite stage, which can last up to one day. The researchers hope that the longer the intervention, the less antibody will be needed to kill the parasites, and a more effective vaccine will be developed.
Related paper information: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2220-1
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