A conformational epitope in placental malaria vaccine antigen VAR2CSA: What does it teach us?

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Documents

  • Fulltext

    Final published version, 733 KB, PDF document

  • Justin Y A Doritchamou
  • Jonathan P Renn
  • Hviid, Lars
  • Patrick E Duffy

VAR2CSA is the Plasmodium falciparum variant surface antigen that mediates binding of infected erythrocytes to chondroitin sulfate A (CSA) and their sequestration in intervillous spaces of the placenta, leading to placental malaria (PM). Relatively high polymorphism in VAR2CSA sequences has hindered development of a vaccine that induces broadly neutralizing immunity. Recent research has highlighted that a broadly reactive human monoclonal antibody, called PAM1.4, binds to multiple conserved residues of different subfragments of VAR2CSA, forming a conformational epitope. In this short perspective, we describe evidence that residues located in the interdomain-1 fragment of VAR2CSA within the PAM1.4 binding epitope might be critical to broad reactivity of the antibody. Future investigation into broadly reactive anti-VAR2CSA antibodies may be important for the following: (1) identification of similar conformation epitopes targeted by broadly neutralizing antibodies; and (2) understanding different immune evasion mechanisms used by placenta-binding parasites through VAR2CSA polymorphism in critical epitopes.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere1011370
JournalPLoS Pathogens
Volume19
Issue number5
ISSN1553-7374
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Copyright: This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

    Research areas

  • Female, Pregnancy, Humans, Placenta/metabolism, Epitopes/genetics, Malaria Vaccines, Malaria, Falciparum/prevention & control, Plasmodium falciparum/metabolism, Antigens, Protozoan, Malaria, Antibodies, Protozoan, Chondroitin Sulfates/metabolism, Erythrocytes/parasitology

Number of downloads are based on statistics from Google Scholar and www.ku.dk


No data available

ID: 347636562