Paulo A. Nogueira

The protective immunity against malaria is associated with antibodies to polymorphic antigens and this context poses a dilemma for the development of vaccines, since the major candidates show remarkable polymorphism that could facilitate the immune evasion. Our data propose to construct with repertoires of antigenic variants from P.vivax MSP1. We showed anti N-terminal PvMSP1 antibodies opsonized Plasmodium vivax merozoites in phagocytosis assay and we used a rational strategy to minimize antigenic polymorphism developing a repertoire of proteins from synthetic DNA sequences. The effective recognition of allelic variants of Block 2 naturally acquired immunity to malaria in rural Amazonians and functional role of opsonic phagocytosis anti ICB2-5 antibodies were fundamental for the consolidation of this vaccine subunit.