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ANTIGENIC VARIATION AT THE INFECTED RED CELL SURFACE IN MALARIA
Many pathogens that either rely on an insect vector to complete their life cycle (e.g., Trypanosoma spp. and Borrelia spp.) or exist in a unique ecological niche where transmission from host to host is sporadic (e.g., Neisseria spp.) have evolved strategies to maintain infection of their mammalian h...
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Published in: | Annual review of microbiology 2001-01, Vol.55 (1), p.673-707 |
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Main Authors: | , , |
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Subjects: | |
Citations: | Items that this one cites Items that cite this one |
Online Access: | Get full text |
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Summary: | Many pathogens that either rely on an insect vector to complete their life
cycle (e.g.,
Trypanosoma
spp. and
Borrelia
spp.) or exist in a
unique ecological niche where transmission from host to host is sporadic (e.g.,
Neisseria
spp.) have evolved strategies to maintain infection of their
mammalian hosts for long periods of time in order to ensure their survival.
Because they have to survive in the face of a fully functional immune system, a
common feature of many of these organisms is their development of sophisticated
strategies for immune evasion. For the above organisms and for malaria
parasites of the genus
Plasmodium
, a common theme is the ability to
undergo clonal antigenic variation. In all cases, surface molecules that are
important targets of the humoral immune response are encoded in the genome as
multicopy, nonallelic gene families. Antigenic variation is accomplished by the
successive expression of members of these gene families that show little or no
immunological cross-reactivity. In the case of malaria parasites, however, some
of the molecules that undergo antigenic variation are also major virulence
factors, adding an additional level of complication to the host-parasite
interaction. In this review, we cover the history of antigenic variation in
malaria and then summarize the more recent data with particular emphasis on
Plasmodium falciparum
, the etiological agent of the most severe form of
human malaria. |
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ISSN: | 0066-4227 1545-3251 |
DOI: | 10.1146/annurev.micro.55.1.673 |