Declining antibody affinity over time after human vaccination with a Plasmodium falciparum merozoite vaccine candidate

Kristina E M Persson; Jessica L Horton; Liriye Kurtovic; James S McCarthy; Robin F Anders; James G Beeson

doi:10.1093/infdis/jiae259

Declining antibody affinity over time after human vaccination with a Plasmodium falciparum merozoite vaccine candidate

J Infect Dis. 2024 May 9:jiae259. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiae259. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Kristina E M Persson^{1

2}, Jessica L Horton³, Liriye Kurtovic³, James S McCarthy^{4

5}, Robin F Anders⁶, James G Beeson^{3

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Laboratory Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
² Clinical Chemistry and Pharmacology, Laboratory Medicine, Region Skåne, Lund, Sweden.
³ Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
⁴ QIMR-Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Queensland Australia.
⁵ Victorian Infectious Diseases Services, Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia.
⁶ Department of Biochemistry and Chemistry, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia.
⁷ Central Clinical School and Department of Microbiology, Monash University, Victoria, Australia.
⁸ Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

PMID: 38723177
DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiae259

Abstract

Maintaining high affinity antibodies after vaccination may be important for long-lasting immunity to malaria, but data on induction and kinetics of affinity is lacking. In a Phase 1 malaria vaccine trial, antibody affinity increased following a second vaccination but declined substantially over 12-months, suggesting poor maintenance of high affinity antibodies.