Protection against Plasmodium falciparum malaria in chimpanzees by immunization with the conserved pre-erythrocytic liver-stage antigen 3.

In humans, sterile immunity against malaria can be consistently induced through exposure to the bites of thousands of irradiated infected mosquitoes. The same level of protection has yet to be achieved using subunit vaccines. Recent studies have indicated an essential function for intrahepatic parasites, the stage after the mosquito bite, and thus for antigens expressed during this stage. We report here the identification of liver-stage antigen 3, which is expressed both in the mosquito and liver-stage parasites. This Plasmodium falciparum 200-kilodalton protein is highly conserved, and showed promising antigenic and immunogenic properties. In chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), the primates most closely related to humans and that share a similar susceptibility to P. falciparum liver-stage infection, immunization with LSA-3 induced protection against successive heterologous challenges with large numbers of P. falciparum sporozoites.