ReviewMalaria journal2014
Plasmodium falciparum malaria and invasive bacterial co-infection in young African children: the dysfunctional spleen hypothesis.
Review in Malaria journal, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- Targeted pneumococcal conjugate vaccination strategies for high-risk children.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2026Review
- Protective coinfection: influenza reprograms myeloid cells to limit CD8 T cell-mediated malaria pathology.Research square · 2026Article
- Overview of the host immune response toJournal of parasitic diseases : official organ of the Indian Society for Parasitology · 2025Review
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- Plasmodium falciparum malaria runs a more severe course in splenectomized patients at comparable levels of parasitemia: a retrospective matched case-control study.Tropical diseases, travel medicine and vaccines · 2025Article
- Malaria Genomics, Vaccine Development, and Microbiome.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- The Prevalence of Malaria and Bacteremia Co-Infections among Febrile Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Tropical medicine and infectious disease · 2022Review
- Factors associated with prolonged hospital stay of imported malaria cases in Chengdu, China: a retrospective study.BMC infectious diseases · 2022Article
- Findings of a community screening programme for human cystic echinococcosis in a non-endemic area.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
- Immunosuppression in Malaria: DoPathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Bloodstream infection with Acinetobacter baumanii in a Plasmodium falciparum positive infant: a case report.Journal of medical case reports · 2021Article
- Events associated with susceptibility to invasive Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi in BALB/c mice previously infected with Plasmodium berghei ANKA.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Predictors of outcome in childhoodVirulence · 2020Review
- Article
- Longitudinal Analysis of Infant Stool Bacteria Communities Before and After Acute Febrile Malaria and Artemether-Lumefantrine Treatment.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2019Article
- Interpreting rapid diagnostic test (RDT) for Plasmodium falciparum.BMC research notes · 2018Review
- Antibody responses to α-Gal in African children vary with age and site and are associated with malaria protection.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Mechanism of splenic cell death and host mortality in a Plasmodium yoelii malaria model.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Loss of Humoral and Cellular Immunity to Invasive Nontyphoidal Salmonella during Current or Convalescent Plasmodium falciparum Infection in Malawian Children.Clinical and vaccine immunology : CVI · 2017Article
- Spleen atrophy related immune system changes attributed to infection of Angiostrongylus cantonensis in mouse model.Parasitology research · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Children with recent or acute malaria episodes are at increased risk of invasive bacterial infections (IBI). However, the exact nature of the malaria-IBI association is still unclear. Young children have an age-related spleen immunologic immaturity, mainly due to the still ongoing development of the marginal zone (MZ) B cell subset. By mounting a rapid antibody response against encapsulated bacteria, these cells are critical for the defence against highly pathogenic microorganisms that do not elicit classical T cell-dependent responses. There is increasing evidence that the anatomy of the spleen becomes disorganized during malaria infection, with complete dissolution of the MZ and apoptosis of MZ B cells. Correspondingly, a reduction in the frequency of the peripheral equivalent of the MZ B cells has been found in malaria endemic areas. A remarkable similarity exists in IBI susceptibility between African children with malaria and hyposplenic or splenectomized patients. However, studies specifically assessing the immune function of the spleen in controlling bacterial infections in young children with malaria are scarce.Here, it is hypothesized that Plasmodium falciparum malaria infection constitutes a detrimental factor in the still immature spleen function of young children, resulting in a factually hyposplenic state during malaria episodes, putting children with malaria at a high risk to develop life-threatening bacterial infections. Studies to confirm or reject this hypothesis are greatly needed, as well as the development of affordable and feasible tools to assess the immune spleen function against encapsulated bacteria in children with malaria.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.