Investigating antibody responses to mosquito salivary antigens across the Asia Pacific to advance novel malaria surveillance strategies

When a mosquito bites a person, it injects salivary proteins to which the person mounts an immune response. Measurement of antibody responses to the Anopheles spp. salivary protein SG6 in human sera has the potential to be a practical, highly sensitive alternative approach to measuring HBR and estimating EIR and levels of exposure to vector bites at both an individual- and population-level. Several studies in African countries have validated IgG antibodies to Anopheles gambiae SG6 (gSG6) as a biomarker of recent Anopheles spp. exposure and Plasmodium spp. transmission events. However, only three studies have investigated antibody responses to gSG6 in the Asia Pacific: two on the Thai Myanmar border and one in the Solomon Islands. Importantly, no studies to date have systematically investigated the species specificity of SG6 responses, as only antibodies to the An. gambiae protein, the dominant vector in most of Africa, have been studied. This is significant as the SG6 gene shares only moderate sequence identity (~50%) between the phylogenetically diverse Anopheles species that exist in other regions . Further, the heterogeneity of procedures used to study the anti-SG6 IgG response across studies precludes the synthesis of these findings across sites of varying Anopheles species, exposure, and malaria incidence. 

Surveillance

Aug 2020 — Oct 2023

$15,000

Australia

Australian Centre for Research Excellence in Malaria Elimination (ACREME)