New Insights into Acquisition, Boosting, and Longevity of Immunity to Malaria in Pregnant Women

Fowkes, FJI; McGready, R; Cross, NJ; Hommel, M; Simpson, JA; Elliott, SR; Richards, JS; Lackovic, K; Viladpai-Nguen, J; Narum, D; Tsuboi, T; Anders, RF; Nosten, F; Beeson, JG

Author(s): Fowkes, FJI; McGready, R; Cross, NJ; Hommel, M; Simpson, JA; Elliott, SR; Richards, JS; Lackovic, K; Viladpai-Nguen, J; Narum, D; Tsuboi, T; Anders, RF; Nosten, F; Beeson, JG;
Details: Publication Year 2012-11-15,Volume 206,Issue #10,Page 1612-1621
Journal Title: JOURNAL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
Publication Type: Journal Article
Abstract: Background. How antimalarial antibodies are acquired and maintained during pregnancy and boosted after reinfection with Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax is unknown. Methods. A nested case-control study of 467 pregnant women (136 Plasmodium-infected cases and 331 uninfected control subjects) in northwestern Thailand was conducted. Antibody levels to P. falciparum and P. vivax merozoite antigens and the pregnancy-specific PfVAR2CSA antigen were determined at enrollment (median 10 weeks gestation) and throughout pregnancy until delivery. Results. Antibodies to P. falciparum and P. vivax were highly variable over time, and maintenance of high levels of antimalarial antibodies involved highly dynamic responses resulting from intermittent exposure to infection. There was evidence of boosting with each successive infection for P. falciparum responses, suggesting the presence of immunological memory. However, the half-lives of Plasmodium antibody responses were relatively short, compared with measles (457 years), and much shorter for merozoite responses (0.8-7.6 years), compared with PfVAR2CSA responses (36-157 years). The longer half-life of antibodies to PfVAR2CSA suggests that antibodies acquired in one pregnancy may be maintained to protect subsequent pregnancies. Conclusions. These findings may have important practical implications for predicting the duration of vaccine-induced responses by candidate antigens and supports the development of malaria vaccines to protect pregnant women.
Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
Keywords: FALCIPARUM-INFECTED ERYTHROCYTES; PLASMODIUM-FALCIPARUM; MEROZOITE ANTIGENS; ANTIBODY-RESPONSES; VIVAX MALARIA; CHILDREN; PARASITEMIA; PROTECTION; DURATION; VAR2CSA
Research Division(s): Infection And Immunity
Link To PubMed Central Version: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3475637/
Publisher's Version: https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jis566
Open Access at Publisher's Site: http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/206/10/1612.long
Terms of Use/Rights Notice: © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Creation Date: 2012-11-15 12:00:00