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Published on: January 2, 2013
Autoantibody profile of patients infected with knowlesi malaria
Jonathan Liew1, Amirah Amir1, Yeng Chen2
1Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 59100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Background:
Autoantibodies or antibodies against self-antigens are produced either during physiological processes to maintain homeostasis or pathological process such as trauma and infection. Infection with parasites including Plasmodium has been shown to generally induce elevated self-antibody (autoantibody) levels. Plasmodium knowlesi is increasingly recognized as one of the most important emerging human malaria in Southeast Asia that can cause severe infection leading to mortality. Autoimmune-like phenomena have been hypothesized to play a role in the protective immune responses in malaria infection.
Methods:
We studied the autoantibody profile from serum of eleven patients diagnosed with P. knowlesi. Autoantigen arrays were used to elucidate the autoantibody repertoire of P. knowlesi infected patients. The patented OGT Discovery Array with 1636 correctly folded antigen was employed.
Results:
Analysis of the patient versus control sera gave us 24 antigens with high reactivity with serum antibodies.
Conclusions:
Understanding the autoantibody profile of malarious patients infected with P. knowlesi would help to further understand the host-parasite interaction, host immune response and disease pathogenesis. These reactive antigens may serve as potential biomarkers for cases of asymptomatic malaria and mild malaria or predictive markers for severe malaria.
