Construction and analysis of the immunogenicity of an attenuated straim of salmonella enterica expressing MAEBL antigen M2 domain of Plasmodium yoelii

Author(s)

Fernanda Maria Franzin

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia
• Defense date: 2009-01-07

Examining board members

Marcelo Brocchi; Euclides Matheucci Junior; Marcelo Palma Sircilli

• Advisor: Marcelo Brocchi; Fabio Trindade Maranhão Costa

Abstract

Malaria is a tropical disease caused by the parasite Plasmodium spp and is considered a serious public health problem. There are about 500 million annual cases and more than one million of deaths, especially in Africa and Asia. In Brazil, there are 500.000 new cases per year, mainly in the Amazon region. Those high rates mortality motivate the search for strategies of control and elimination of this illness. The vaccination is a promising tool in the control and prevention of malaria; however, a safe and effective vaccine is not available yet, in part due to the complex life cycle of the parasite and expression of different antigens in each phase. Membrane antigen erythrocyte binding like (MAEBL) is a strong candidate to be used in the development of an effective vaccine against malaria, since this antigen is expressed in different periods of the parasite life cycle. In this work, the M2 domain of Plasmodium yoelli MAEBL antigen was expressed in attenuated strains of Salmonella enterica Typhimurium (?3987, ?4550 e H683) and the use of these bacterias as potential inductor of protection against murine malaria was evaluated. These strains were obtained by construction and transduction of the plasmid pYA3137trc carrying the m2 region of the maebl gene and the antigen expression was confirmed by immunoblotting. The oral administration of the recombinant strains to BALB/c/AnUnib mice resulted in the colonization of host tissues only for the H683 strain. This strain was further evaluated in terms of induction of humoral immune response against M2 and immunization capacity in murine model. Even though humoral response against M2 was detected in vivo, the recombinant strains did not shown protective potential against the infection of Plasmodium yoelii in murine model. (AU)