ReviewVaccine2015
Designing a VAR2CSA-based vaccine to prevent placental malaria.
Review in Vaccine, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 84 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pregnancy-specific malarial immunity and risk of malaria in pregnancy and adverse birth outcomes: a systematic review.BMC medicine · 2020Pooled it
- Antibody reactivity to the VAR2CSA DBL5 domain among pregnant women in Northern Ghana.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Quantitative LC-MS/MS profiling reveals aberrant chondroitin sulfate in Alzheimer's disease.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Pregnant women's attitudes and intentions toward tuberculosis, malaria, group B streptococcus, and respiratory syncytial virus vaccines in pregnant: Findings from a cross-sectional study of pregnant women living in Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, and Pakistan.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Isolation and characterization of Hofbauer cells from human term placentas.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Beyond VAR2CSA: redefining the antigenic landscape of placental malaria vaccines.Open research Africa · 2026Review
- VAR2CSA-specific IgG and IgM antibodies are markers of exposure and protection against adverse malaria pregnancy outcomes.Malaria journal · 2025Article
- Nutrient stress dramatically increases malaria parasite clag2 copy number to increase host cell permeability and enable pathogen survival.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- Malaria vaccines: a new era of prevention and control.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2024Review
- Developing a solid-phase method for the enzymatic synthesis of heparan sulfate and chondroitin sulfate backbones.Glycobiology · 2024Article
- Structure-guided design of VAR2CSA-based immunogens and a cocktail strategy for a placental malaria vaccine.PLoS pathogens · 2024Article
- Mechanical forces control the valency of the malaria adhesin VAR2CSA by exposing cryptic glycan binding sites.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Aotus nancymaae model predicts human immune response to the placental malaria vaccine candidate VAR2CSA.Lab animal · 2023Article
- Evaluation of the Pfs25-IMX313/Matrix-M malaria transmission-blocking candidate vaccine in endemic settings.Malaria journal · 2022Review
- High-Throughput BioPlex Assay for the Study of Functionally Active Plasmodium Falciparum Antigens That Are Expressed on the Surface of Infected Erythrocytes.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Pregnancy outcomes in a malaria-exposed Malian cohort of women of child-bearing age.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Article
- Preservation of Parasite RNA in the Field.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Allelic variants of full-length VAR2CSA, the placental malaria vaccine candidate, differ in antigenicity and receptor binding affinity.Communications biology · 2021Article
- Computational Insights into the Interaction between Cytoadherence Receptor gC1qR and the DBLβ12 Domain of aLife (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Structural basis for placental malaria mediated by Plasmodium falciparum VAR2CSA.Nature microbiology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Placental malaria (PM) due to Plasmodium falciparum is a major cause of maternal, fetal and infant mortality, but the mechanisms of pathogenesis and protective immunity are relatively well-understood for this condition, providing a path for vaccine development. P. falciparum parasites bind to chondroitin sulfate A (CSA) to sequester in the placenta, and women become resistant over 1-2 pregnancies as they acquire antibodies that block adhesion to CSA. The protein VAR2CSA, a member of the PfEMP1 variant surface antigen family, mediates parasite adhesion to CSA, and is the leading target for a vaccine to prevent PM. Obstacles to PM vaccine development include the large size (∼ 350 kD), high cysteine content, and sequence variation of VAR2CSA. A number of approaches have been taken to identify the combination of VAR2CSA domains and alleles that can induce broadly active antibodies that block adhesion of heterologous parasite isolates to CSA. This review summarizes these approaches, which have examined VAR2CSA fragments for binding activity, antigenicity with naturally acquired antibodies, and immunogenicity in animals for inducing anti-adhesion or surface-reactive antibodies. Two products are expected to enter human clinical studies in the near future based on N-terminal VAR2CSA fragments that have high binding affinity for CSA, and additional proteins preferentially expressed by placental parasites are also being examined for their potential contribution to a PM vaccine.
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Registered trials
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.