Department of Immunology, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.
West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, Department of Biochemistry, Cell, and Molecular Biology, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.
J Infect Dis. 2023 Jul 14;228(2):196-201. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiad031.
Parasitemia among pregnant women with protective immunity to Plasmodium falciparum malaria is often dominated by VAR2CSA-positive infected erythrocytes (IEs). VAR2CSA mediates sequestration of IEs in the placenta. We hypothesized that the previously observed spontaneous postpartum clearance of parasitemia in such women is related to the expulsion of the placenta, which removes the sequestration focus of VAR2CSA-positive IEs. We assessed parasitemias and gene transcription before and shortly after delivery in 17 Ghanaian women. The precipitous decline in parasitemia postpartum was accompanied by selective reduction in transcription of the gene encoding VAR2CSA. Our findings provide a mechanistic explanation for the earlier observation.
孕妇对恶性疟原虫具有保护性免疫，其寄生虫血症通常以 VAR2CSA 阳性感染红细胞（IE）为主。VAR2CSA 介导 IE 在胎盘内的定殖。我们假设，先前观察到此类孕妇产后寄生虫血症的自发清除与胎盘排出有关，胎盘排出可消除 VAR2CSA 阳性 IE 的定殖焦点。我们在 17 名加纳妇女分娩前后评估了寄生虫血症和基因转录。产后寄生虫血症的急剧下降伴随着编码 VAR2CSA 的基因转录的选择性减少。我们的发现为之前的观察结果提供了一种机制解释。
