[Structural studies of malaria vaccine]

Malaria still remains a serious health problem in large areas of the world, and in this article, recent research progress mainly made by us toward malaria vaccine development has been reviewed. 1) Peptide vaccines (antigens) of immunodominant tetrapeptide repeats (NANP and NVDP) of the circumsporozoite surface protein of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, were genetically produced in E. coli as a fusion protein with a part of human growth hormone, which has affected on the conformations and immunogenicities of the peptide vaccines. 2) Monoclonal antibodies against the peptide antigens were produced by fusion of mouse spleen cells with myeloma cells, and the F (ab's) obtained by partial digestion of the antibodies with papain were used for the measurement of the dissociation constants of the antigen-antibody complexes. The amino acid sequence of the Hv region in F(ab) domain was also deduced from its nucleotide sequence.