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Abstract
With drug resistance to available therapeutics continuing to develop against Plasmodium falciparum malaria, the development of an effective vaccine candidate remains a major research goal. Successful interruption of invasion of parasites into erythrocytes during the blood stage of infection will prevent the severe clinical symptoms and complications associated with malaria. Previously studied blood stage antigens have highlighted the hurdles that are inherent to this life-cycle stage, namely that highly immunogenic antigens are also globally diverse, resulting in protection only against the vaccine strain, or that naturally acquired immunity to blood stage antigens do not always correlate with actual protection. The blood stage antigen reticulocyte binding homolog RH5 is essential for parasite viability, has globally limited diversity, and is associated with protection from disease. Here we summarize available information on this invasion ligand and recent findings that highlight its candidacy for inclusion in a blood-stage malaria vaccine.
Disclosure if Potential Conflicts of Interest
No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.
Acknowledgments
We are indebted to Drs. Gabriel Gutierrez, Amy Noe, David Peabody and Annie Mo for the many valuable discussions during the course of this project.
Funding
Work done in the authors' lab cited in this review was funded by NIAID/DMID contract AI-N01–045210 to Leidos.