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ABSTRACT |
TOP
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
REFERENCES |
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INTRODUCTION |
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TOP
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
REFERENCES |
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A limited number of epidemiologic models are available to identify immune correlates of clinical protection. Case-control studies may be used to define correlates of susceptibility or resistance to severe malaria but do not distinguish factors that suppress infection in the absence of drug treatment from those that determine disease severity once infection has occurred. These studies also provide only a single time-point for comparison, and may miss important factors by comparing severe malaria cases to uncomplicated malaria controls that are different from the cases only with respect to their stage in the natural history of the disease when they come to medical attention. Longitudinal studies or large cross-sectional studies can explore immunologic correlates of infection intensity or of clinical attack rates, but since both measures may vary greatly with time in a single individual, significant inaccuracy arises from practical and ethical constraints on sampling frequency. Moreover, such studies do not distinguish between factors that prevent infection and those that clear parasites after a clinically significant infection has occurred. Many malaria infections are cleared without treatment after variable periods of time, but for obvious ethical reasons it is not feasible to study this phenomenon and its immune determinants in untreated individuals.5,6 This paper explores ethically acceptable ways of identifying and validating immune correlates of clinical protection against malaria in individuals receiving standard malarial treatment.
In Mali, West Africa, approximately 15–20% of P. falciparum infections fail to respond to chloroquine treatment. The public health policy, based on World Health Organization recommendations, is to treat uncomplicated malaria episodes with chloroquine as the first-line drug, and to reserve sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine as the second-line drug for those individuals who fail chloroquine treatment. This study arose from the recent characterization of a molecular determinant of chloroquine resistance. Through a combination of genetic mapping studies, population surveys, and mutational analysis by parasite transfection, a specific lysine to threonine mutation (P. falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter [pfcrt] K76T gene) has been identified as the determinant of chloroquine resistance in laboratory strains of P. falciparum.7,8 This marker has also been shown to be predictive of rates of in vivo chloroquine resistance among different settings when adjusted for age.9 Although mutations in another candidate chloroquine resistance gene (P. falciparum multiple drug resistance 1 [pfmdr 1] gene) have been shown to modulate the level of in vitro chloroquine resistance in clones that were already resistant,10 these mutations did not confer resistance directly and no evidence has been found that this modulation affects treatment outcomes in vivo, nor has an interaction between pfcrt and pfmdr 1 been found.11
Extensive epidemiologic studies have shown that the pfcrt 76T mutation is the most predictive marker of chloroquine resistance in the field.8,11 In this study, we show that following a clinical malaria episode treated with chloroquine, a significant proportion of individuals clear parasites carrying the chloroquine resistance mutation. We examine the epidemiologic correlates of this clearance phenomenon, and explore its possible utility as a phenotypic marker of protective immunity in immunologic and genetic studies.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
REFERENCES |
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All protocols were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of University of Mali. In addition, the studies in Mopti 1997 and Bandiagara 1997 and 1998 were approved by IRBs of University of Maryland and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Informed consent was obtained from each patient or, in case of minors, from parents or guardians.
Chloroquine efficacy. Patients presenting with uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria were recruited. After obtaining informed consent, in vivo parasitologic resistance to chloroquine was measured as described.12 Briefly, resistance was defined as follows: RIII = persistent parasitemia with reduction to > 25% of initial parasitemia (or no reduction in parasitemia) by day 3; RII = persistent parasitemia with reduction to < 25% of initial parasitemia; RI = initial clearance of parasites, with subsequent parasitemia by day 14; sensitive = clearance of parasites with no recurrence of parasitemia by day 14. Therapeutic efficacy was measured according to the World Health Organization 1996 protocol.13
Inclusion criteria in Mopti and Bandiagara 1997 were an age 
2 years; a positive thick or thin blood smear for mono-specific P. falciparum asexual forms and treatment seeking for symptoms consistent with malaria (fever, chills, headache, body aches); no history of allergy to chloroquine; no signs of concurrent non-malarial febrile illness, severe malnutrition, or other significant medical illness; and no signs of severe malaria (coma, obtundation, seizures, prostration, respiratory distress, shock, protracted vomiting, parasitemia greater than 100,000/mm3, hematocrit < 15%). The same inclusion criteria were used in Bandiagara in 1998 and in Kolle in 1998 and 1999 with the exception of age. In the later studies, children 6 months old were included. Chloroquine phosphate was administered directly by study staff at doses of 10 mg/kg on day 0, 10 mg/kg on day 1, and 5 mg/kg on day 2. Subjects were observed after each dose, and a full dose was repeated if vomiting occurred within 30 minutes and a half dose was repeated for vomiting within one hour. Subjects were followed up for 14 days as described.12 Briefly, on post-treatment days 1 and 2, symptoms, other medications, temperature, and results of a physical examination were recorded, but microscopy was not routinely performed. The same clinical information was collected and thick and thin blood smears for microscopic diagnosis of malaria were prepared on days 3, 7, and 14. Whenever microscopy was performed, finger prick blood was also blotted onto filter paper strips (3MM; Whatman, Hillsboro, OR) for extraction of DNA and subsequent molecular biology analyses. Asexual forms were counted at 1,000x magnification on Giemsastained thick smears against 300 leukocytes as described.14 Smears were considered to be negative only after the entire thick smear was read. Parasitologic chloroquine treatment outcome were categorized as sensitive and resistance levels as RI, RII, or RIII according to a modification of World Health Organization protocols.12 Therapeutic efficacy was classified as an adequate clinical response (ACR), an early treatment failure (ETF), and a late treatment failure (LTF) according to the World Health Organization protocols
Molecular analysis. DNA was extracted from finger prick blood blotted onto filter paper and the presence or absence of the chloroquine resistance-conferring mutation pfcrt 76T was determined as described.11 Briefly, a nested mutation-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and/or nested PCR followed by restriction endonuclease digestion were used to determine the pfcrt codon 76 genotype. Any samples with restriction digestion results suggesting mixed infections, i.e., infections with both the wild type K76 and the mutant form 76T were repeated and subjected to repeated mutation-specific PCR and/or direct DNA sequencing. Detailed protocols for these methods are available on the Internet at http:// medschool.umaryland.edu/CVD/plowe.html.
Data analysis and statistics. Samples were analyzed from all pre-treatment infections for which the chloroquine treatment outcome was known. To best assess genetically determined parasite phenotypes, only classic parasitologic definitions of resistance, rather than therapeutic efficacy, were used for data analysis and interpretation. Cases of RI, RII, and RIII resistance were grouped for analysis. Only those samples that carried the pfcrt 76T mutant were included in the analysis. For analysis purposes, mixed infections were categorized as mutant pfcrt 76T. Chi-square or Fisher’s exact tests for two-tailed significance at P = 0.05 were used for univariate frequency comparisons. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed using Stata (Stata Corp., College Station, TX).
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RESULTS |
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ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
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The prevalence of parasitologic resistance was 22.6% (316 of 1,401). Most chloroquine-resistant infections were the low level RI type (Figure 1
). Analysis of therapeutic efficacy showed that 90.1% (1,284 of 1,425), 4.3% (62 of 1,425), and 5.6% (79 of 1,425) were ACR, ETF, and LTF, respectively.
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Association of pfcrt 76T parasite clearance with age, hematocrit and ethnic background.
The role of host characteristics in the ability to clear pfcrt 76T mutant parasites was assessed by analyzing the association of clearance rates with age, sex, parasitemia, axillary temperature, residence, ethnic background, hematocrit, and hemoglobin type. Univariate analysis showed that the ability to clear chloroquine-resistant parasites was strongly associated with age (P < 0.0001), hematocrit (P < 0.001), and ethnic background (P = 0.006) (Table 1). There was a trend towards an association between hemoglobin AS/SS and the clearance phenotype, but this did not reach statistical significance (odds ratio [OR] = 5.2, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.69–108.58, P = 0.1). Outside of this trend, the clearance phenotype was not dependent on sex, residence, fever, parasitemia, and hemoglobin type.
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). A minimum of 75% of children 10 years old and at least 93% of those 13 years old were able to clear their pfcrt 76T mutant parasites following chloroquine treatment (Figure 2). The ability to clear chloroquine-resistant parasites was highly dependent on age. Children more than one year of age but less than five years of age were much less likely to clear resistant parasites than younger or older children and adults.
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INTRODUCTION
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
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The rate of clearance in infants, which is significantly higher than rates of clearance in young children, is the first demonstration that the widely reported infant protection is at least in part attributable to differences in the ability to clear drug-resistant parasites.15,16 Although age-related immunologic changes could be involved in parasite clearance,17,18 high prevalence of fetal hemoglobin, presence of circulating maternal antibodies, or other environmental factors have all been proposed but not proven to be responsible for infant protection in malaria.19–22
The resistant parasite clearance phenotype was independently associated with ethnic background. Fulani subjects were less likely to clear their resistant parasites than Dogon or Malinké subjects. These results suggest that there may be genetic characteristics that are important in the host’s ability to mount a protective immune response to malaria infection. Other reports have found differences in malaria morbidity between the Fulani and other ethnic groups in west Africa.23 However, in those studies, the Fulani were more protected than the other ethnic groups, suggesting that the immune mechanisms involved in clearing resistant parasites after chloroquine treatment may be different from those involved in the measures of protection reported in previous studies.
Subjects capable of clearing their resistant parasites had a significantly higher hematocrit levels than patients who did not clear resistant infections. This suggests that persistent parasitemia with or without previous chloroquine treatment in the later group has led to an increased prevalence of anemia, as shown in another report.24 The data support the view that the ability to clear resistant parasites does confer protection against malaria-associated anemia.
The rates of chloroquine-resistant parasite clearance found in this study are significantly higher than rates of spontaneous parasite clearance by patients living in malaria-endemic areas.25 Although the other known pfcrt mutations were not investigated in this study, our previous report found no significant difference in the prevalence of pfcrt 74I, 75E, 220S, 271E, 326S, 356T, or 371I mutations in P. falciparum infections that cleared after chloroquine treatment and those that did not clear after chloroquine treatment.11 Several reports show that the addition of pfmdr1 mutations to pfcrt 76T does not improve the predictive value of pfcrt 76T alone, suggesting that mutations in pfmdr1 are not likely to explain these difference in the ability to clear pfcrt 76T parasites.11,26,27 Other host-related factors such as differences in diet or in rate of chloroquine absorption or metabolism could contribute to clearance but have not been investigated here.28
Recent studies suggest that some anti-malarial drugs act by increasing the rate of parasite removal by the host spleen.29 We also note that chloroquine treatment has been associated with higher production of host cytokines involved in parasite killing.30–32 Taken together, these results lead us to hypothesize that chloroquine treatment may be boosting the host’s ability to eliminate the infection even when the drug is not directly or fully effective against resistant parasites.33
In areas of moderate levels of chloroquine resistance, the great majority of patients 4 years old and nine of ten of those 13 years old were capable of clearing chloroquine resistant parasites following treatment with chloroquine. These findings are consistent with those in earlier reports, which showed that even in areas of widespread chloroquine resistance, older children respond better to treatment than younger ones.34–38 These results have potential public health implications in malaria-endemic-sub-Saharan African countries. They suggest that treatment policy changes aimed at switching first-line treatment from chloroquine to other more expensive antimalarial drugs could be initially targeted to children less than five years old, especially when the cost of the second-line drug is an obstacle to implementing a complete policy change.38
Subjects living in malaria-endemic settings are known to clear some of their infections spontaneously.6 However, because it is not ethical to leave clinically symptomatic infections untreated, the immunologic mechanisms involved in the clearance of these infections have not been investigated. Because a molecular marker of chloroquine resistance provides a precise measurement of the clearance of drug-resistant parasites, this phenomenon is a potentially valuable phenotypic marker of protective immunity in immunologic and genetic studies. Similar approaches may be possible with other drugs for which molecular markers for resistance have been identified, such as sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine.39 Once adjusted for age, comparing characteristics of resistant parasite clearers and non-clearers represents an ethically acceptable method that may shed light on the immunologic and genetic determinants of the clearance phenotype. These determinants may lead to the discovery of immune correlates of malaria protection that would serve as valuable tools for evaluating antimalarial vaccine candidates.
Received November 4, 2002. Accepted for publication May 29, 2003.
Acknowledgments: We thank the following individuals for their contribution to this work: Chiaka Diakité, Robert Gwadz, Richard Sakai, Akouni Dougnon, Ibrahim Ouologuem, Idrissa Cisse, Dramane Coulibaly, Fassoro Camara, Drissa Camara, and Gana Camara; the directors of the Bandiagara and Mopti Health Centers and Mopti Regional Malaria Control Program; the Bandiagara Traditional Healers Association; and the residents of Mopti, Bandiagara, and Kolle.
Financial support: This study was supported by contract no. N01-AI-85346 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the UNDP/ World Bank/World Health Organization TDR/Multilateral Initiative on Malaria grant no. 980152, and by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) through its Health and Human Resources Analysis for Africa Program and direct support from the USAID Mission, Bamako for development of the Malaria Research and Training Center. Abdoulaye A. Djimdé is supported by an NIH Research Fellowship and a United Nations Development Program/ World Bank/World Health Organization Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases Research Training Grant. Additional support for the group of Ogobara K. Doumbo at the Malaria Research and Training Center came from NIH grant no. 5P50AI39469 and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Authors’ addresses: Abdoulaye A. Djimdé, Ogobara K. Doumbo, Ousmane Traoré, Ando B. Guindo, Kassoum Kayentao, Yacouba Diourté, Safiotou Niaré-Doumbo, Drissa Coulibaly, Abdoulaye K. Koné, Yacouba Cissoko, Mamadou Theketé, Bakary Fofana, Alassane Dicko, and Dapa A. Diallo, Malaria Research and Training Center, Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry, University of Bamako, Point G, BP 1805, Bamako, Mali. Thomas E. Wellems, Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Building 4, Room 126, Bethesda MD 20892. Dominic Kwiatkowski, University Department of Paediatrics, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU and Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7BN, United Kingdom. Christopher V. Plowe, Malaria Section, Center for Vaccine Development, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 685 West Baltimore Street, HSF 480, Baltimore MD 21044.
Reprint requests: Christopher V. Plowe, Malaria Section, Center for Vaccine Development, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 685 West Baltimore Street, HSF 480, Baltimore MD 21044, Telephone: 1-410-706-5328, Fax: 1-410-706-6205, E-mail: cplowe{at}medicine.umaryland.edu.
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REFERENCES |
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TOP
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
REFERENCES |
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