IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v395y1998i6705d10.1038_27570.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Maternal antibodies block malaria

Author

Listed:
  • Michal Fried

    (Walter Reed Army Institute of Research)

  • François Nosten

    (Shoklo Malaria Research Unit
    Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University
    Centre for Tropical Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital)

  • Alan Brockman

    (Shoklo Malaria Research Unit
    Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University
    Centre for Tropical Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital)

  • Bernard J. Brabin

    (Tropical Child Health Group, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine)

  • Patrick E. Duffy

    (Walter Reed Army Institute of Research)

Abstract

Women are at increased risk from malaria during pregnancy, and, for unknown reasons, this risk is greatest during the first pregnancy1. Plasmodium falciparum, the most virulent of the four malaria parasites of humans, adheres to a molecule called chondroitin sulphate A (CSA) on the surface of syncytiotrophoblasts (cells lining the intervillous space)2 and sequesters in the human placenta. Here we show that anti-adhesion antibodies, which limit the accumulation of parasites in the placenta, appear in pregnant women from Africa and Asia who have been pregnant on previous occasions (multigravidas), but not in those who are pregnant for the first time (primigravidas). Anti-adhesion antibodies against CSA-binding parasites are strain-independent and are associated with greatly reduced prevalence and density of infection. We conclude that malaria susceptibility in primigravidas is related to the lack of these anti-adhesion antibodies, and that an anti-adhesion vaccine for maternal malaria may be globally effective.

Suggested Citation

  • Michal Fried & François Nosten & Alan Brockman & Bernard J. Brabin & Patrick E. Duffy, 1998. "Maternal antibodies block malaria," Nature, Nature, vol. 395(6705), pages 851-852, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:395:y:1998:i:6705:d:10.1038_27570
    DOI: 10.1038/27570
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/27570
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/27570?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chakrabarti, Averi, 2021. "Deforestation and infant mortality: Evidence from Indonesia," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:395:y:1998:i:6705:d:10.1038_27570. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.