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Editorial
. 2022 Mar 28:11:e77751.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.77751.

Tackling variants with antibodies

Elizabeth H Aitken  1 , Stephen J Rogerson  1
Affiliations
Editorial

Tackling variants with antibodies

Elizabeth H Aitken et al. Elife. .

Abstract

Antibodies targeting the protein that causes placental malaria can recognise multiple variants of the protein, which may help guide the development of new vaccines to protect pregnant women from malaria.

Keywords: P. falciparum; Placental malaria; VAR2CSA; blocking antibody; immunology; infectious disease; inflammation; malaria; microbiology; pregnancy; vaccine; variant.

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Conflict of interest statement

EA, SR No competing interests declared

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Antibody defence in placental malaria.
Placental malaria is caused by an accumulation of parasite-infected red blood cells (red, circled structures) in the placenta. These infected blood cells have a protein (VAR2CSA) that can attach to the CSA protein (green wavy lines) located on the epithelial layer of the placenta (dark pink) (A). Over successive pregnancies, the body develops antibodies (Y-shaped proteins) against VAR2CSA that can prevent the infected red blood cells from binding. However, the genetic code of VAR2CSA proteins can vary (illustrated as differently coloured parasites in the red blood cells), and effective antibodies would need to recognize multiple variants. Doritchamou et al. mixed placental plasma from immune mothers with individual VAR2CSA variants and quantified the number of antibodies bound to each one (blue). They then showed that antibodies bound to one full-length VAR2CSA variant were also able to recognize other VAR2CSA variants (C) and block their binding to CSA. These antibodies were cross protective (B), suggesting that exposure to just a small number of VAR2CSA proteins may be enough to provide protection from placental malaria.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

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