Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Immunol.
Sec. Vaccines and Molecular Therapeutics
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1350560
This article is part of the Research Topic RNA Vaccines For Prevalent And Newly Emerging Diseases. View all 9 articles

Immunization with PfGBP130 generates antibodies that inhibit RBC invasion by P. falciparum parasites

Provisionally accepted
Jonathan D. Kurtis Jonathan D. Kurtis 1Yannick Johnson Yannick Johnson 1Ahmad R. Shakri Ahmad R. Shakri 2Sunthorn Pond-Tor Sunthorn Pond-Tor 3Anup Jnawali Anup Jnawali 1Tanbir Najrana Tanbir Najrana 1Hannah W. Wu Hannah W. Wu 4Mohamad-Gabriel Alameh Mohamad-Gabriel Alameh 5Drew Weissman Drew Weissman 5EDWARD KABYEMELA EDWARD KABYEMELA 6Patrick E. Duffy Patrick E. Duffy 7Michal Fried Michal Fried 7Dipak K. Raj Dipak K. Raj 1,2*
  • 1 Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Division of Biology and Medicine, Brown University, Providence, United States
  • 2 University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States
  • 3 Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States
  • 4 Department of Pediatrics, Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States
  • 5 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
  • 6 Muheza Designated District Hospital, Muheza, Tanzania
  • 7 NIH, Bethesda, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Despite decades of effort, Plasmodium falciparum malaria remains a leading killer of children. The absence of a highly effective vaccine and the emergence of parasites resistant to both diagnosis as well as treatment hamper effective public health interventions. To discover new vaccine candidates, we used our whole proteome differential screening method and identified PfGBP130 as a parasite protein uniquely recognized by antibodies from children who had developed resistance to P. falciparum infection but not from those who remained susceptible. Immunization of mice with PfGBP130-A (aa 111-374), the region identified in our differential screen, formulated as a DNA plasmid or lipid encapsulated mRNA, but not as a recombinant protein, induced antibodies that inhibited RBC invasion in vitro. mRNA encoding the full ectodomain of PfGBP130 (aa 89-824) also generated parasite growth-inhibitory antibodies. We are currently advancing PfGBP130-A formulated as a lipid encapsulated mRNA for efficacy evaluation in non-human primates.

    Keywords: Malaria, Vaccine, Blood stage malaria antigen, mRNA, Growth inhibiting activity

    Received: 05 Dec 2023; Accepted: 30 Apr 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kurtis, Johnson, Shakri, Pond-Tor, Jnawali, Najrana, Wu, Alameh, Weissman, KABYEMELA, Duffy, Fried and Raj. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Dipak K. Raj, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Division of Biology and Medicine, Brown University, Providence, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.