Scientists breed a 'pan-African' malaria parasite to build a better whole-parasite malaria vaccine
Researchers have created a hybrid malaria parasite that combines the manufacturing advantages of the strain used in every current whole-parasite malaria vaccine with the much higher liver infectivity of a parasite collected recently in East Africa. The work is published in JCI Insight.
Scientists have successfully bred a hybrid malaria parasite called AV27 to develop a more effective whole-parasite malaria vaccine. The research, published in JCI Insight, involved mating two Plasmodium falciparum parasite strains inside mosquitoes and selecting the offspring with the most desirable combination of traits. No genes were added, removed, or redesigned; instead, the hybrid inherits all its genes from the two parent parasites found in Africa today.
The AV27 parasite is intended for use in the next-generation version of Sanaria's PfSPZ-LARC2 Vaccine, which is currently fully attenuated. This approach, unlike vaccines built around one or two parasite proteins, uses the whole parasite at its sporozoite stage, allowing the immune system to see thousands of parasite antigens simultaneously.
The hybrid AV27 was shown to reach the human liver about 15 times more efficiently than the current NF54 strain, which has been used in previous PfSPZ vaccines. With high yield and high liver infectivity, AV27 combines the best of both parent strains and carries immune targets from both East and West Africa. The research demonstrates that this whole-organism vaccine approach can be achieved through natural mating of parasites in mosquitoes, without any genetic manipulation.
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