Progress toward a Malaria Vaccine: Efficient Induction of Protective Anti-Malaria Immunity
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Moriya Tsuji
Abstract
Malaria can be a very severe disease, particularly in young children, pregnant women (mostly in primipara), and malaria naïve adults, and currently ranks among the most prevalent infections in tropical and subtropical areas throughout the world. The widespread occurrence and the increased incidence of malaria in many countries, caused by drugresistant parasites (Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax) and insecticideresistant vectors (Anopheles mosquitoes), indicate the need to develop new methods of controlling this disease. Experimental vaccination with irradiated sporozoites can protect animals and humans against the disease, demonstrating the feasibility of developing an effective malaria vaccine. However, developing a universally effective, long lasting vaccine against this parasitic disease has been a difficult task, due to several problems. One difficulty stems from the complexity of the parasites life cycle. During their life cycle, malaria parasites change their residence within the host, thus avoiding being reexposed to the same immunological environment. These parasites also possess some distinct antigens, present at different life stages of the parasite, the socalled stagespecific antigens. While some of the stagespecific antigens can induce protective immune responses in the host, these responses are usually genetically restricted, this being another reason for delaying the development of a universally effective vaccine. The stagespecific antigens must be used as immunogens and introduced into the host by using a delivery system that should efficiently induce protective responses against the respective stages. Here we review several research approaches aimed at inducing protective antimalaria immunity, overcoming the difficulties described above.
Copyright © 2001 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
Articles in the same Issue
- Vaccine Development: from Empirical Medicine to Molecularly Designed Therapy
- Dendritic Cells for Specific Cancer Immunotherapy
- Intracellular Bacteria as Targets and Carriers for Vaccination
- Bacteria-Mediated Transfer of Eukaryotic Expression Plasmids into Mammalian Host Cells
- Revealing the Potential of DNA-Based Vaccination: Lessons Learned from the Hepatitis B Virus Surface Antigen
- Progress toward a Malaria Vaccine: Efficient Induction of Protective Anti-Malaria Immunity
- Peptide Vaccines and Peptide Libraries
- Defined Synthetic Vaccines
- Antimicrobial Peptides: Properties and Applicability
- G-Quadruplex DNA Structures Variations on a Theme
- The Role of Heat Shock Proteins and Their Receptors in the Activation of the Immune System
- Transcriptional Repression Mediated by the KRAB Domain of the Human C2H2 Zinc Finger Protein Kox1/ZNF10 Does Not Require Histone Deacetylation
- Structure and Evolution of 4-Coumarate:Coenzyme A Ligase (4CL) Gene Families
- Inhibition of Hepatitis B Virus by Hammerhead Ribozyme Targeted to the Poly(A) Signal Sequence in Cultured Cells
- Chemical Accessibility of 18S rRNA in Native Ribosomal Complexes: Interaction Sites of mRNA, tRNA and Translation Factors
- C-Terminal Peptides of Interleukin-6 Modulate the Expression of junB Protooncogene and the Production of Fibrinogen by HepG2 Cells
- Proteome Analysis by Three-Dimensional Protein Separation: Turnover of Cytosolic Proteins in Hepatocytes
- Structural Intermediates in the Putative Pathway from the Cellular Prion Protein to the Pathogenic Form
- Local Variability of the Phosphoglycerate Kinase-Triosephosphate Isomerase Fusion Protein from Thermotoga maritima MSB 8
- Epigenetics of Latent Epstein-Barr Virus Genomes: High Resolution Methylation Analysis of the Bidirectional Promoter Region of Latent Membrane Protein 1 and 2B Genes
- The Cytosine N4-Methyltransferase M.PvuII Also Modifies Adenine Residues
- Expression of the Human Menkes ATPase in Xenopus laevis Oocytes
Articles in the same Issue
- Vaccine Development: from Empirical Medicine to Molecularly Designed Therapy
- Dendritic Cells for Specific Cancer Immunotherapy
- Intracellular Bacteria as Targets and Carriers for Vaccination
- Bacteria-Mediated Transfer of Eukaryotic Expression Plasmids into Mammalian Host Cells
- Revealing the Potential of DNA-Based Vaccination: Lessons Learned from the Hepatitis B Virus Surface Antigen
- Progress toward a Malaria Vaccine: Efficient Induction of Protective Anti-Malaria Immunity
- Peptide Vaccines and Peptide Libraries
- Defined Synthetic Vaccines
- Antimicrobial Peptides: Properties and Applicability
- G-Quadruplex DNA Structures Variations on a Theme
- The Role of Heat Shock Proteins and Their Receptors in the Activation of the Immune System
- Transcriptional Repression Mediated by the KRAB Domain of the Human C2H2 Zinc Finger Protein Kox1/ZNF10 Does Not Require Histone Deacetylation
- Structure and Evolution of 4-Coumarate:Coenzyme A Ligase (4CL) Gene Families
- Inhibition of Hepatitis B Virus by Hammerhead Ribozyme Targeted to the Poly(A) Signal Sequence in Cultured Cells
- Chemical Accessibility of 18S rRNA in Native Ribosomal Complexes: Interaction Sites of mRNA, tRNA and Translation Factors
- C-Terminal Peptides of Interleukin-6 Modulate the Expression of junB Protooncogene and the Production of Fibrinogen by HepG2 Cells
- Proteome Analysis by Three-Dimensional Protein Separation: Turnover of Cytosolic Proteins in Hepatocytes
- Structural Intermediates in the Putative Pathway from the Cellular Prion Protein to the Pathogenic Form
- Local Variability of the Phosphoglycerate Kinase-Triosephosphate Isomerase Fusion Protein from Thermotoga maritima MSB 8
- Epigenetics of Latent Epstein-Barr Virus Genomes: High Resolution Methylation Analysis of the Bidirectional Promoter Region of Latent Membrane Protein 1 and 2B Genes
- The Cytosine N4-Methyltransferase M.PvuII Also Modifies Adenine Residues
- Expression of the Human Menkes ATPase in Xenopus laevis Oocytes
