Effect Of Parasite Diversity On The Levels And Quality Of Antibody Responses To Plasmodium Falciparum In An Area Of Seasonal Malaria Transmission

ABSTRACT The important role of antibody-mediated mechanisms in protection from clinical malaria has been demonstrated by passive transfer experiments but the targets of protective immunity are not clearly defined. A number of antigens are however in various stages of testing as possible vaccine candidates. Polymorphism in these antigens, which has been reported to be an immune evasion mechanism, has hampered the development of these antigens as vaccines since antibody responses against one allelic form of an antigen have been shown to be less effective against parasites that express a differe…