Published in:
01-12-2021 | Plasmodium Falciparum | Commentary
Can complement fix placental malaria?
Authors:
Justin Y. A. Doritchamou, Patrick E. Duffy
Published in:
BMC Medicine
|
Issue 1/2021
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Excerpt
Placental malaria (PM) is a deadly public health problem caused by the human parasite
Plasmodium falciparum, and this scourge will get worse as existing control measures lose potency. Our understanding of PM pathogenesis suggests a vaccine is feasible, but first-generation candidates yielded only modest variant-specific activity in early trials. In this issue of
BMC Medicine, Opi and colleagues provide evidence for a heretofore unrecognized mechanism of protective immunity, whereby the neutralizing activity of antibody against PM parasites is enhanced by fixing the complement component C1q [
1]. …