Melbourne Medical School Collected Works - Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1

The malaria vaccine candidate Apical Membrane Antigen 1 – antigenic diversity and its potential as effective multi-allele vaccine

Terheggen, Ulrich ( 2016)

Understanding naturally acquired immunity to malaria and how human antibodies protect against clinical malaria is essential for vaccine development. Antibodies against Plasmodium falciparum apical membrane antigen 1 (AMA1), a leading vaccine candidate, can inhibit merozoite invasion of erythrocytes and protect from P. falciparum malaria. However, polymorphism in antigens like AMA1 is a common mechanism for immune evasion and presents major challenges in vaccine development. This study aims to understand antigenic diversity of AMA1, the correlation between sequence polymorphism and antigenic differences, the impact of polymorphism on potential vaccine escape, and the structural differences of the protein amongst various alleles, with the goal to ultimately ascertain which AMA1 alleles should be included in an effective multi-allele vaccine.