Immunochemical and functional studies on a novel protein of Plasmodium falciparum containing EGF-like domains

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Malaria infection of humans is one of the most important and deadly infectious diseases in the world, killing more than two million people each year. Traditionally, drugs and insecticides have been used to treat the disease and control its spread. Unfortunately, both of these have become much less effective and there now exist untreatable cases of malaria. Alternative control measures are urgently needed and this project focuses on developing a better understanding of how the malaria parasite functions. If important processes such as red blood cell invasion can be understood in detail then it becomes possible to identify proteins essential for survival of the parasite. These could then be used as a vaccine against the disease. Current work suggests that the vaccine will be need more than one parasite protein and it becomes essential to identify the best combination of components. The parasite protein called MSP1 is thought to be a very promising candidate, but it is insufficiently active on its own. We have recently discovered a new protein in the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, that is similar to MSP1. We would like to know more about this protein and determine if it may be a useful addition to MSP1 for a vaccine. This project intends to further characterize the properties of this new protein including its role in red blood cell invasion and to examine whether immunization with the rodent malaria form of the protein is able to protect mice against malaria infection. The results of this project will be highly significant in the field of malaria vaccine development and will indicate whether this new protein will be a useful component of the eventual malaria vaccine.