Proteomic Analysis of Urine from Patients with Plasmodium vivax Malaria Unravels a Unique Plasmodium vivax Protein That Is Absent from Plasmodium falciparum

Raianna F Fantin; Claudia Abeijon; Dhelio B Pereira; Ricardo T Fujiwara; Lilian L Bueno; Antonio Campos-Neto

doi:10.3390/tropicalmed7100314

Proteomic Analysis of Urine from Patients with Plasmodium vivax Malaria Unravels a Unique Plasmodium vivax Protein That Is Absent from Plasmodium falciparum

Trop Med Infect Dis. 2022 Oct 18;7(10):314. doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed7100314.

Authors

Raianna F Fantin¹, Claudia Abeijon², Dhelio B Pereira³, Ricardo T Fujiwara¹, Lilian L Bueno¹, Antonio Campos-Neto^{2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Parasitology, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte 31270-901, MG, Brazil.
² DetectoGen Inc., Westborough, MA 01581, USA.
³ Centro de Pesquisas em Medicina Tropical de Rondônia (CEPEM), Porto Velho 76812-329, RO, Brazil.
⁴ Department of Infectious Disease and Global Health, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University, North Grafton, MA 01536, USA.

Abstract

Five species of Plasmodium cause malaria in humans and two of them, P. vivax and P. falciparum, pose the greatest threat. Rapid antigen detection tests (RADT) have been used for many years to diagnose and distinguish malaria caused by these two parasites. P. falciparum malaria can single-handedly be diagnosed using an RADT, which detects the unique P. falciparum specific histidine-rich protein 2 (HRP2). Unfortunately, there is no RADT that can single-handedly diagnose P. vivax malaria because no specific marker of this parasite has yet been described. Here, we report the discovery of a unique P. vivax protein (Vir14, NCBI Reference Sequence: XP_001612449.1) that has no sequence similarity with proteins of P. falciparum and no significant similarities with proteins of other species of Plasmodium. We propose that this protein could be an outstanding candidate molecule for the development of a promising RADT that can single-handedly and specifically diagnose P. vivax malaria.

Keywords: Plasmodium falciparum; Plasmodium vivax; Vir14; malaria; rapid antigen detection test.

Grants and funding

Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais/FAPEMIG, Brazil (Grant# CBB APQ-00766-18), the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq) (Grant# 421392/2018-5 and Grant# 302491/2017-1), RTF and LLB are Research Fellows from the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq).