Malaria vaccines 1985–2005: a full circle?

Comparative Testing of Six Antigen-Based Malaria Vaccine Candidates Directed Toward Merozoite-StagePlasmodium falciparum

“…Measurements of antibody or cellular responses to particular parasite antigens, following normal infection, have shown both positive and negative correlations with indirect measures of immune protection from malaria such as reduction in parasitemia, fever, or anemia (6,7,19). However, although immunoepidemiological data have influenced vaccine research, particularly in the selection of the variable erythrocyte surface adhesion antigens as vaccine targets, they have not provided sufficiently clear insights to support a scientific consensus on prioritizing antigens for vaccine development (21,23). Malaria vaccine research has thus probably not yet achieved what has been termed the crucial "simplification of the complex" step in vaccine development (10).…”

The P25 Ookinete Surface Proteins: Homology Modeling and Phylogenetic Relationships

“…Two members of P25 family,Pfs25 from P. falciparum and Pvs25 from P. vivax, are already in clinical trial Phase II of vaccine development, which itself represents their importance as vaccine candidate proteins. The members of P25 family have a signal sequence which is followed by four tandem epidermal growth factor-(EGF-) like domains and a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor, which anchors the protein to the parasite surface [4]. Single letter amino acid sequences of P25 proteins in FASTA format were downloaded from Swiss-Prot release 50.4 (http://au.expasy.org/sprot/) [21].…”

“…P25 proteins are present on ookinete surface of all known Plasmodium species [1][2][3]. Many proteins have been identified as promising vaccine candidates against malaria including two proteins of P25 family [4]. P25 proteins start expressing immediately after fertilization and continue to be expressed on zygote, ookinete, and young oocyst stages of Plasmodium [5].…”

Preclinical profiling of the immunogenicity of a two-component subunit malaria vaccine candidate based on virosome technology

“…6,7 Different vaccine candidates are based on this protein and have shown partial or total protection from disease in artificial challenge experiments (reviewed in Refs. 8,9). A recent field trial with the recombinant CSP vaccine RTS,S/AS02A in children in Mozambique has shown promising results in terms of protection from severe disease.…”