USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

Martha Sedegah

Keith Limbach

Douglas E Brough

Imre Kovesdi

Duncan L McVey

Joseph T Bruder

C Richter King

Thomas L Richie

Denise Louise Doolan

Daniel John Carucci

Joao Carlos Aguair

Walter R Weiss

Stephen L Hoffman

Richard C Hedstrom

Joao Aguiar

The invention provides novel malaria polypeptides expressed at the pre-erythrocytic stage of the malaria life-cycle. The antigens can be utilized to induce an immune response against malaria in a mammal by administering the antigens in vaccine formulations or expressing the antigens in DNA or other nucleic acid expression systems delivered as a vaccine formulation.

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The invention provides a method of identifying an antigen from a pathogen or a disease antigen comprising the use of an adenoviral vector array comprising two or more different adenoviral vectors, wherein each adenoviral vector comprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding a different antigen of a pathogen. The adenoviral vectors are administered to antigen presenting cells (APCs) in vitro or to an animal in vivo. The immunogenicity of the antigen is measured by screening for an immune response from effector T lymphocytes in vitro and by screening for the absence of pathogen-induced disease onset in vivo.

Malaria antigen screening method

The invention relates to a recombinant polypeptide construct comprising epitopes fromprotein circumsporozoite protein (CSP). The epitopes contain HLA class I binding motifs and stimulate an anti-malaria CD8T-cell response. The polypeptides can be incorporated into immunogenic formulations against malaria. Additionally, the antigens are useful for facilitating evaluation of immunogenicity of candidate malaria vaccines.

A first embodiment is a specific plasmid vector, pDIP/PyCSP.1, into which nucleotides encoding the targets of specific immune responses are inserted. These targets include, but are not limited to proteins and peptides. These plasmid constructs are incorporated in a composition comprising a suitable and acceptable art recognized pharmaceutical reagent that is benign (non-reactive with) to the plasmid construct. The plasmid construct provides protective immune responses to the disease associated with the selected targets. A second embodiment is a construct having, at a minimum, the nucleotide sequences encoding one or more Plasmodium species proteins in a pharmaceutically acceptable vector. a third embodiment is a method of controlling malaria in mammals comprising injecting a polynucleotide delivery vector into a mammal.

Polynucleotide vaccine protective against malaria, methods of protection

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Gaithersburg, MD, United States of America

Martha Sedegah