Researchers identify new way the malaria parasite and red blood cells interact

March 11, 2009

Virginia Commonwealth University Life Sciences researchers have discovered a new mechanism the malaria parasite uses to enter human red blood cells, which could lead to the development of a vaccine cocktail to fight the mosquito-borne disease.

Malaria is transmitted to humans through bites from mosquitoes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 350 million and 500 million cases of malaria occur world-wide annually, and more than 1 million people, mostly children living in areas of Africa south of the Sahara, die each year from it.

For decades, researchers have known that a molecule called glycophorin B, which is found on the surface of human red blood cells, is important for invasion of the malaria parasite. However, the specific molecule by which the malaria parasite attaches itself to invade the host was not known until now.

The team examined how the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, interacts with red blood cells using a biochemical test that looks specifically at how the parasite and host bind to each other. The findings revealed that the EBL-1 molecule is the specific attachment site used by the parasite on glycophorin B.

The study was published online in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of March 9.

"We have now identified how the parasite binds to glycophorin B on the red blood cells. Down the road, the EBL-1 molecule could be used as a vaccine target against malaria as part of a multivalent vaccine, or vaccine cocktail," said principal investigator Ghislaine Mayer, Ph.D., assistant professor in the VCU Department of Biology.

Additionally, Mayer and her team hypothesize that the malaria parasite may be the cause of the loss of the gene for glycophorin B in the pygmies of Ituri forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to Mayer, these findings suggest that the parasite may possibly be putting selective pressure on populations in malaria-endemic areas, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. She said that there appears to be a disproportionate number of individuals in malaria-endemic areas with unusual or mutated red blood cell surface molecules.

"We think these changes on the surface of the red blood cell may lead to a decrease in the severity of malaria or resistance against malaria. For example, Africans are protected from a form of malaria caused by the Plasmodium vivax parasite because the molecule that the parasite recognizes is missing from the surface of their red blood cells because of a mutation," said Mayer.

Virginia Commonwealth University

End Malaria
by Michael Bungay Stanier (Editor)

End Malaria is more than a book, it’s a great cause.

At least $20 from each copy sold by us goes directly to Malaria No More to send a mosquito net to a family in need and to support life-saving work in the fight against malaria. Malaria No More, an international advocacy organization, is on a mission to end malaria related deaths by 2015.

In addition to saving lives, buying this book means you can enjoy essays by 62 of American’s favorite business authors, including Tom Peters, Nicholas Carr, Pam Slim, and Sir Ken Robinson. Organized into three main sections—Focus, Courage, Resilience—and eight subsections—Tap Your Strengths, Create Freedom, Love & Be Kind, Disrupt Normal, Take Small Steps, Embrace Systems, Get Physical, Collaborate—all essays in End...

The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria (Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease)
by Randall M. Packard (Author)

Malaria sickens hundreds of millions of people—and kills one to three million—each year. Despite massive efforts to eradicate the disease, it remains a major public health problem in poorer tropical regions. But malaria has not always been concentrated in tropical areas. How did other regions control malaria and why does the disease still flourish in some parts of the globe?From Russia to Bengal to Palm Beach, Randall Packard’s far-ranging narrative traces the natural and social forces that help malaria spread and make it deadly. He finds that war, land development, crumbling health systems, and globalization—coupled with climate change and changes in the distribution and flow of water—create conditions in which malaria's carrier mosquitoes thrive. The combination of these...

The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
by Sonia Shah (Author)

In recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have opened their pocketbooks in hopes of eradicating the scourge. How does a parasitic disease that we’ve known how to prevent for more than a century still infect three hundred million people every year, killing nearly one million of them? In The Fever, the journalist Sonia Shah sets out to answer this question, delivering a timely, inquisitive chronicle of the illness and its influence on human lives. The Fever captures the curiously fascinating, devastating history of this long-standing thorn in the side of humanity.

The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men: Inspiration, Vision, and Purpose in the Quest to End Malaria
by Bill Shore (Author)

A small cadre of scientistscollaborators and competitorsare determined to develop a vaccine for malariaa feat most tropical disease experts have long considered impossible. Skepticism, doubt, and a host of logistical and financial obstacles dog their quest. Success may ultimately elude them. Why, and how, do they persist? Bill Shore is a writer, philanthropist, and business leader who knows from personal experience the rare and elusive nature of transformative innovation. In this moving and inspiring book, the story of these uncompromising scientists serves as springboard for his passionate inquiry into the character and moral fabric of those who devote their lives to solving the world’s most pressing and perplexing problems. What does it take to achieve the impossible? It takes...

The Malaria Capers : More Tales of Parasites and People, Research and Reality
by Robert S. Desowitz (Author)

"Reads like a murder mystery. . . . [Desowitz] writes with uncommon lucidity and verse, leaving the reader with a vivid understanding of malaria and other tropical diseases, and the ways in which culture, climate and politics have affected their spread and containment."—New York TimesWhy, Robert S. Desowitz asks, has biotechnical research on malaria produced so little when it had promised so much? An expert in tropical diseases, Desowtiz searches for answers in this provocative book.

Little Things Make Big Differences: A Story about Malaria
by John Nunes (Author)

Quinine: Malaria and the Quest for a Cure That Changed the World
by Fiammetta Rocco (Author)

Quinine: The Jesuits discovered it. The Protestants feared it. The British vied with the Dutch for it, and the Nazis seized it. Because of quinine, medicine, warfare, and exploration were changed forever. For more than one thousand years, there was no cure for malaria. In 1623, after ten cardinals and hundreds of their attendants died in Rome while electing Urban VII the new pope, he announced that a cure must be found. He encouraged Jesuit priests establishing new missions in Asia and in South America to learn everything they could about how the local people treated the disease, and in 1631, an apothecarist in Peru named Agostino Salumbrino dispatched a new miracle to Rome. The cure was quinine, an alkaloid made from the bitter red bark of the cinchona tree. From the quest of the...

Humanity's Burden: A Global History of Malaria (Studies in Environment and History)
by James L.A. Webb Jr. (Author)

Humanity's Burden provides a panoramic overview of the history of malaria. It traces the long arc of malaria out of tropical Africa into Eurasia, its transfer to the Americas during the early years of the Columbian exchange, and its retraction from the middle latitudes into the tropics since the late nineteenth century. Adopting a broadly comparative approach to historical patterns and processes, it synthesizes research findings from the natural and social sciences and weaves these understandings into a narrative that reaches from the earliest evidence of malaria infections in tropical Africa up to the present. Written in a style that is easily accessible to non-specialists, it considers the significance of genetic mutations, diet, lifestyle, migration, warfare, palliative and curative...

Molecular Approaches to Malaria:
by Irwin W. Sherman (Editor)

"Molecular Approaches to Malaria" provides an overview of the rapid and significant developments that have occurred in malaria research, including the 2002 genome sequencing of Plasmodium falciparum and its mosquito vector, Anopheles gambiae. This work: provides a concise source of up-to-date research findings; appeals to a diverse audience, including malaria researchers, teachers, investigators, and public health professionals; offers contributions by recognized malaria researchers with practical experience; and, presents comprehensive coverage of topics including a clearly written introduction to Plasmodium molecular biology.

Understanding Malaria: Fighting an Ancient Scourge

Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite* that lives part of its life in humans and part in mosquitoes. Malaria remains one of the major killers of humans worldwide, threatening the lives of more than one-third of the world’s population. It thrives in the tropical areas of Asia, Africa, and Central and South America, where it strikes millions of people. Each year 350 to 500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide. Sadly, more than 1 million of its victims, mostly young children, die yearly.

Although malaria has been virtually eradicated in the United States and other regions with temperate climates, it continues to affect hundreds of people in this country every year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates 1,200 cases of malaria are diagnosed each...