Profiling the host response to malaria vaccination and malaria challenge
Susanna Dunachie1, Adrian V S Hill2, Helen A Fletcher3
1The Jenner Institute, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Churchill Hospital, Oxford OX3 7LJ, UK; Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, 3rd Floor, 60th Anniversary Chalermprakiat Building, 420/6 Ratchawithi Road, Bangkok 10400, Thailand; Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine Research Building, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7FZ, UK.
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A vaccine for malaria is urgently required. The RTS,S vaccine represents major progress, but is only partially effective. Development of the next generation of highly effective vaccines requires elucidation of the protective immune response. Immunity to malaria is known to be complex, and pattern-based approaches such as global gene expression profiling are ideal for understanding response to vaccination and protection against disease. The availability of experimental sporozoite challenge in humans to test candidate malaria vaccines offers a precious opportunity unavailable for other current targets of vaccine research such as HIV, tuberculosis and Ebola. However, a limited number of transcriptional profiling studies in the context of malaria vaccine research have been published to date. This review outlines the background, existing studies, limits and opportunities for gene expression studies to accelerate malaria vaccine research.
