There are more than 90 countries around the epidemic of malaria, malaria worldwide cause 241 million infections, and will cause about 627000 deaths, vaccine is a preventive measures can help eliminate fatal disease, but there is no vaccine for malaria, and recently such as in the treatment of SARS-CoV2 mRNAs vaccine development advanced technology or is expected to help develop a new generation of malaria vaccine.
recently, One was published in the international journal npj Vaccines entitled " mRNA-LNP expressing PfCSP and Pfs25, two leading vaccine candidates targeting infection and transmission of Plasmodium falciparum " In the study report, Scientists from George Washington University have developed two mRNA vaccine candidates, It may effectively reduce the infection and transmission of malaria, In addition, the researchers have also found that, Both experimental vaccines can induce a robust immune response in the body, Whether it is used alone or in combination.
Researchers said Nirbhay Kumar, eliminate malaria could not happen overnight, but the vaccine may be expected to malaria from many parts of the world "expulsion" out, mRNA vaccine technology may be expected to change the current malaria control rules, we see the technology against COVID is very successful, in this paper, we adjusted this technology, aims to make it as a tool to help effectively against malaria. Researchers have focused on Plasmodium falciparum, Its only one of four Plasmodium species that trigger malaria, The deadliest malaria parasite to humans; Falciparum and P. vivax are mainly transmitted by the bite of Anopheles, It accounts for more than 90% of all malaria cases worldwide, And it accounts for more than 95 percent of malaria deaths; Most of the cases and deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, But half of the world's population is at risk for the deadly disease, to this end, in the article, Two special mRNA vaccines have been developed to interfere with different parts of the parasite life cycle.
Researchers use targeted to help Plasmodium move in the body and invade the infection of protein mRNA vaccine to immune a group of mice, then they use can target to help in the mosquito gut breeding protein another vaccine to another group of mice, then use can cause infection of plasmodium to challenge the immune mice, and the vaccine induced antibodies tested to determine whether it can interfere with the spread of malaria.
The results show that the two vaccines can induce a powerful immune response in the mouse body, and can effectively reduce the host and mosquito vector parasite infection, during malaria parasites spread to healthy mosquitoes, the presence of protective antibodies or can significantly reduce the mosquito parasite load, this may be an important step in the interference of malaria transmission. Researchers Kumar said, these vaccines or can effective prevention of Plasmodium infection, it may completely eliminate the spread of malaria parasites potential, then the researchers use the above two vaccines to immune mice, the results found that the immune or can effectively reduce the infection and the spread of malaria, at the same time also will not affect the immune response of mice.
To see the difference between these mRNA vaccines and other nucleic acid-based vaccine platforms, the researchers repeated the experiments with DNA plasmids and found that the mRNA vaccine was much more superior in inducing an immune response than the DNA vaccine. Later-stage researchers hope to bring the new vaccine to market through more research (including related research in non-human primates), aiming to produce vaccines that can be safely used in the human body.
Finally, the researchers said, have a can effectively interfere with the Plasmodium life cycle of multiple parts of the vaccine mix may be one of the "holy grail" of malaria vaccine development, the study or can help researchers in the development can safely used in human body to prevent malaria and an important step, researchers aimed to develop can help human fight against malaria to save lives potential vaccine.
