Novel Malaria Multi-Epitope Vaccine Design
Abstract
Malaria is a serious infectious disease threat to U.S. military personnel deployed in malaria endemic areas, and an efficacious vaccine is not yet available. To date, most vaccine candidates that have entered clinical trials, whether subunit or whole organism, have components derived from single parasite strains and have largely not been successful due to the strain-dependent features of the elicited immune response. We proposed to identify conserved immunodominant HLA A and B-restricted T cell epitopes from four leading Plasmodium falciparum candidate antigens and utilize a self-assembling protein nanoparticle (SAPN) technology to produce multi-antigen, multi-epitope subunit malaria vaccines. We have completed recruitment and blood sample collection from 300 study subjects. DNA from all 300 subjects have been purified and HLA typing of all subjects has been completed. Interferon-gamma/Granzyme B FLUOROSpot T cell assays with 15mer overlapping peptide stimulation of subject PBMCs has been completed. Of the 300 subject samples analyzed, 252 assays have passed based on our assay quality control criteria. Of the 252 passed assays127 HLA-typed subject samples yielded a positive IFN-gamma/Granzyme B response to at least one of the 31 peptide pools. High resolution HLA typing was successfully done for 291 of the 300 subjects. This report will also present assay data on parasite diversity analysis, blood film microscopy and ELISA to assess anti-CSP antibodies as an exposure proxy.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1115254
Entities
People
- Kwadwo Kusi
- Martha Sedegah
Organizations
- Naval Medical Research Center
- University of Ghana