Variant surface antigens of Plasmodium chabaudi as a model to study antigenic variation in P. vivax

间日疟原虫疟疾可引起严重的疾病。这种寄生虫被认为附着在组织和器官上导致疾病。间日疟原虫是一种慢性感染，导致血液中的寄生虫长期处于低水平。其中一个原因是寄生虫会避开宿主。S抗体反应。疟原虫大部分时间生活在红细胞（RBC）中，宿主的抗体应该是不可见的。然而，寄生虫需要与红细胞外的环境沟通，因此产生存在于红细胞表面的分子。这意味着寄生虫不再是隐形的，可以被抗体消灭。为了避免这种情况，红细胞表面的蛋白质通过打开和关闭编码不同变体的基因而不断变化，这样寄生虫就能比抗体反应领先一步。我们将使用一个疟疾小鼠模型来研究这些蛋白质的表达是如何被调节的，它们是否被抗体识别，以及它们是否负责器官的粘附。有可能利用这些知识来预防粘连，从而预防疾病，并开发疫苗。

Plasmodium vivax Malaria can cause severe illness in people. The parasite is thought to stick to tissues and organs resulting in disease. P. vivax is a chronic infection resulting in low levels of parasites in blood for a long time. One reason for this is that the parasite avoids the host?s antibody response. The malaria parasite lives for much of its life in red blood cells (RBC), and should be invisible to host antibodies. However, the parasite needs to communicate with the environment outside the RBC, and therefore produces molecules present on the RBC surface for this. This means that the parasite is no longer invisible and can be eliminated by antibodies. To avoid this, the proteins at the RBC surface constantly change by switching on and off genes that code for different variants, so that the parasite stays one step ahead of the antibody response. We will use a mouse model of malaria to investigate how the expression of these proteins is regulated, whether they are recognized by antibodies, and whether they are responsible for adhesion in organs. It might possible to use this knowledge to prevent adhesion and thus disease, and to develop vaccines.