One-step design of a stable variant of the malaria invasion protein RH5 for use as a vaccine immunogen
Campeotto I., Goldenzweig A., Davey J., Barfod L., Marshall JM., Silk SE., Wright KE., Draper SJ., Higgins MK., Fleishman SJ.
Significance Malaria is one of the world’s most devastating infectious diseases, affecting hundreds of millions of people and resulting in nearly half a million deaths each year. The parasites that cause malaria must invade the red blood cells of an infected patient, while blocking this process prevents the disease. The PfRH5 protein is an exciting vaccine candidate required for red blood cell invasion by Plasmodium falciparum , the most deadly malaria parasite. Here, we describe our use of a streamlined computational methodology to design variants of PfRH5 that can be produced more simply and cheaply and that show greater thermal stability. This method has broad potential to help the design of vaccines that target many of the world’s most deadly diseases.