ArticlePLoS neglected tropical diseases2020
Cytokine signatures of Plasmodium vivax infection during pregnancy and delivery outcomes.
Article in PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of MIP-1α and MIP-1β Chemokines in Malaria in Relation to Disease Severity.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review of circulating IP-10/CXCL10 in patients with Plasmodium infections in relation to disease severity.Scientific reports · 2024Pooled it
- A systematic review and meta-analysis of blood level of MCP-1/CCL-2 in severe and uncomplicated malaria.Scientific reports · 2024Pooled it
- Interleukin-5 levels in relation to malaria severity: a systematic review.Malaria journal · 2023Pooled it
- Effect of controlled human Plasmodium falciparum infection on B cell subsets in individuals with different levels of malaria immunity.Medical microbiology and immunology · 2025Trial
- The Landscape of Malaria in a Five-Decade Institution in the State of Amazonas: Historical Trends, Scientific Contributions, and Research Priorities.Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical · 2026Review
- Current update on malaria in pregnancy: a systematic review.Tropical diseases, travel medicine and vaccines · 2025Review
- Association of the humoral immune response with the inflammatory profile in Plasmodium vivax infections in pregnant women.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2024Observational
- Review
- Eotaxin-2 and eotaxin-3 in malaria exposure and pregnancy.Malaria journal · 2022Article
- IL-4, IL-10, CCL2 and TGF-β as potential biomarkers for severity in Plasmodium vivax malaria.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2022Article
- A Retrospective Review on Severe Malaria in Colombia, 2007-2020.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Adverse pregnancy outcomes are associated with Plasmodium vivax malaria in a prospective cohort of women from the Brazilian Amazon.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
23 authors at 15 institutions in 11 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Plasmodium vivax malaria is a neglected disease, particularly during pregnancy. Severe vivax malaria is associated with inflammatory responses but in pregnancy immune alterations make it uncertain as to what cytokine signatures predominate, and how the type and quantity of blood immune mediators influence delivery outcomes. We measured the plasma concentrations of a set of thirty-one biomarkers, comprising cytokines, chemokines and growth factors, in 987 plasma samples from a cohort of 572 pregnant women from five malaria-endemic tropical countries and related these concentrations to delivery outcomes (birth weight and hemoglobin levels) and malaria infection. Samples were collected at recruitment (first antenatal visit) and at delivery (periphery, cord and placenta). At recruitment, we found that P. vivax-infected pregnant women had higher plasma concentrations of proinflammatory (IL-6, IL-1β, CCL4, CCL2, CXCL10) and TH1-related cytokines (mainly IL-12) than uninfected women. This biomarker signature was essentially lost at delivery and was not associated with birth weight nor hemoglobin levels. Antiinflammatory cytokines (IL-10) were positively associated with infection and poor delivery outcomes. CCL11 was the only biomarker to show a negative association with P. vivax infection and its concentration at recruitment was positively associated with hemoglobin levels at delivery. Birth weight was negatively associated with peripheral IL-4 levels at delivery. Our multi-biomarker multicenter study is the first comprehensive one to characterize the immunological signature of P. vivax infection in pregnancy thus far. In conclusion, data show that while TH1 and pro-inflammatory responses are dominant during P. vivax infection in pregnancy, antiinflammatory cytokines may compensate excessive inflammation avoiding poor delivery outcomes, and skewness toward a TH2 response may trigger worse delivery outcomes. CCL11, a chemokine largely neglected in the field of malaria, emerges as an important marker of exposure or mediator in this condition.
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