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Infect Immun, July 1998, p. 3457-3461, Vol. 66, No. 7
Malaria Program, Naval Medical Research
Institute, Bethesda, Maryland 20889-56071;
Pan American Health Organization, Washington, D.C.
200372; and
Department of Microbiology
and Immunology, University of Maryland at Baltimore, Baltimore,
Maryland 21201-15593
Received 13 November 1997/Returned for modification 22 January
1998/Accepted 10 April 1998
Immunization of mice with DNA vaccines encoding the full-length
form and C and N termini of Plasmodium yoelii merozoite
surface protein 1 provided partial protection against sporozoite
challenge and resulted in boosting of antibody titers after challenge.
In C57BL/6 mice, two DNA vaccines provided protection comparable to
that of recombinant protein consisting of the C terminus in Freund's
adjuvant.
Merozoite surface protein 1 (MSP-1)
has been the focus of intense efforts to develop malaria blood-stage
vaccines (6). A large body of evidence from in vitro studies
with Plasmodium falciparum and from challenge studies in
murine and primate models indicate that MSP-1 can be a target of
protective immune responses, suggesting that a vaccine against MSP-1
could protect humans against malaria (2, 3, 5, 10, 13, 14, 16,
20). Here we report that immunization of mice with DNA vaccines
encoding Plasmodium yoelii MSP-1 (PyMSP-1) provides
protective immunity against sporozoite challenge, that the protection
is comparable to that achieved by a recombinant-protein-adjuvant
formulation of the same antigen, and that immunized mice exhibit
boosting of antibody responses after infection.
Construction of PyMSP-1 DNA vaccines.
The VR1012 vector
(11) was modified by insertion of a new polylinker (Fig.
1) to accept minigene cassettes and also
to permit addition of the signal sequence of human tissue plasminogen
activator (tPA) from VR1020 (17). Another vector, VR1012 tPA
p2p30, which contains the p2 and p30 T-helper epitopes of tetanus
toxin, was constructed (18, 23). Full-length and partial
PyMSP-1 gene fragments were amplified from P. yoelii genomic
DNA (strain 17XNL; nonlethal) and cloned into the minigene vectors
(Fig. 1). The fragments corresponding to the N and C termini encoded
amino acids 1 to 466 and 1659 to 1757 of PyMSP-1 (15),
respectively. The constructs were verified by sequence analysis.
Plasmid DNAs were prepared with CsCl gradients (7). To
verify that the constructs were able to express antigen, UM449 cells
were transfected with plasmid DNA, and 24 h later an indirect
fluorescent-antibody test (IFAT) with monoclonal antibody 302 (1) or a polyclonal serum against a recombinant protein
consisting of the PyMSP-1 C terminus (3, 24) was used to
detect antigen expression.
0019-9567/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Protection of Mice against Plasmodium
yoelii Sporozoite Challenge with P. yoelii Merozoite
Surface Protein 1 DNA Vaccines

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ABSTRACT
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TEXT
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FIG. 1.
DNA vaccine constructs used in this study. (A) Sequence
of the minigene polylinker used to replace the original polylinker in
the VR1012 vector. (B) Schematic representation of PyMSP-1 DNA vaccine
constructs encoding the C terminus, the N terminus, and full-length
PyMSP-1. These inserts were cloned into the minigene vectors derived
from VR1012, as described in the text. The human tPA signal sequence
(black boxes) and p2p30 T-helper epitopes (hatched boxes) are
indicated.
Immunization and challenge regimen. The experiments reported here were conducted in accordance with reference 13a. Female 6- to 8-week-old BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice (The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine) were injected intramuscularly with 50 µl of plasmid DNA (1 mg/ml) in saline in each tibialis anterior muscle with a 0.3-ml insulin syringe and 291/2 gauge needle (Becton Dickinson no. 329431). Plasmid mixtures contained 100 µg of each plasmid. Positive control C57BL/6 mice received subcutaneous injections of one dose of 50 µg of recombinant protein consisting of the MSP-1 C terminus (produced in Escherichia coli) in complete Freund's adjuvant, followed by two doses of MSP-19 in incomplete Freund's adjuvant (22). Mice were challenged 2 weeks after the third immunization by intravenous injection of 50 P. yoelii sporozoites (17XNL). Geometric mean parasitemias were calculated and graphed. The repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine whether groups differed from one another. Differences in group means on each day were calculated by one-way ANOVA and by the nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis test. ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis outcomes were equivalent. Multiple-comparison post hoc analyses subsequent to ANOVA were done with Tukey's honestly significant difference test in order to identify the groups that differed. Sera were collected 4 days before challenge. Antibody titers in pooled sera were measured by IFAT against air-dried P. yoelii-infected erythrocytes.
Immunogenicity and protection against sporozoites in BALB/c mice. All of the PyMSP-1 DNA vaccines were immunogenic in BALB/c mice (Table 1). Interestingly, the antibody response to constructs encoding full-length PyMSP-1 and the PyMSP-1 N terminus was higher without the tPA signal peptide. Fusion of the PyMSP-1 N terminus to the C terminus resulted in a twofold increase in antibody titer over that obtained with C terminus alone (1:640 and 1:320, respectively). The highest antibody titer (1:1,280) was in mice immunized with the mixtures of the tPA-p2p30-N-term and tPA-p2p30-C-term constructs. Thus, the mixture of N- and C-terminus-encoding plasmids induced titers (1:1,280) of antibody to the whole parasite fourfold greater than was achieved by immunization with the C-terminus sequence alone (1:320). Addition of N-terminus-encoding sequence to the C-terminus-encoding construct, either as a gene fusion on a single plasmid or as two plasmids mixed together, improved antibody responses after intramuscular immunization.
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Immunogenicity and protection against sporozoite challenge in C57BL/6 mice. Previous work indicated that C57BL/6 mice show the highest level of protection against challenge with infected erythrocytes after immunization with recombinant proteins consisting of the PyMSP-1 C terminus in adjuvants (22). We therefore repeated the experiments with C57BL/6 mice and, to compare the DNA and recombinant-protein vaccines, immunized one group with recombinant MSP-19 protein in Freund's adjuvant.
All the PyMSP-1 DNA vaccines tested were immunogenic in C57BL/6 mice (Table 2). The highest antibody titer (1:2,560) was induced in mice that received the mixture of tPA-p2p30-C-term and tPA-PyMSP-1 plasmids or the mixture of tPA-p2p30-C-term and tPA-p2p30-N-term plasmids. Mice immunized with the tPA-p2p30-C-term plasmid had antibody titers of 1:1,280. Mice immunized with three doses of the MSP-19 recombinant protein had IFAT titers of 1:5,120. Thus, in C57BL/6 mice, the best PyMSP-1 DNA vaccines induced antibody titers twofold lower than those induced by the recombinant-protein vaccine, and the comparable construct induced antibody titers fourfold lower than did the recombinant protein in Freund's adjuvant.
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0.5), and the tPA-p2p30-C-term plasmid was comparable to the
recombinant protein in this regard. When administered to BALB/c mice
the mixture of tPA-p2p30-C-term and tPA-p2p30-N-term also reduced
peak parasitemia significantly (Fig. 2).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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We thank Sanjai Kumar for providing recombinant MSP-1 and the staff of the Malaria Program who provided the sporozoites used in this work.
This investigation received financial support from the UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) and the Naval Medical Research and Development Command Work Units, 61102A.S13.00101.BFX1431, 612787A.870.00101.EFX.1432, and 623002A.810.00101.HFX.1433. S.I.B. was supported by a Research Training Fellowship for Medical Students awarded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Malaria Program, Naval Medical Research Institute, 12300 Washington Ave., Rockville, MD 20852. Phone: (301) 295-0026. Fax: (301) 295-6171. E-mail: hoffmans{at}nmripo.nmri.nnmc.navy.mil.
Present address: 2356 E. Seneca St., Tucson, AZ 85719.
Present address: The Institute for Genomic Research, Rockville, MD
20850.
Editor: J. M. Mansfield
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