Determination of Monoclonal Antibody Binding to Malaria-Infected Red Blood Cells
Malaria is still prevalent in much of Africa, leaving approximately 627,000 people dead in 2020. Due to the complex lifecycle of malaria, which includes a mosquito stage, liver stage, and red blood cell stage, current vaccines and treatments are limited. Antibodies have been identified as an important part of the immune response to malaria, with recent research suggesting that their role may be through antibody-dependent cytotoxicity amongst infected red blood cells (iRBCs). Being that this process requires IgG class antibodies to bind to antigens on iRBCs, effectively tagging them to be lysed by NK cells, the Hart Lab hypothesizes that lab-produced monoclonal antibodies will provide protection against infection by mobilizing NK cells to kill iRBCs, subsequently reducing blood stage parasite load. With the ultimate goal of testing said hypothesis, my proposal aimed to show that monoclonal IgG class antibodies produced during malaria infection in mice bind to iRBCs in mice.