Spanish scientists identify a defense barrier to fight malaria

Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite which causes, among other things, high fever, chills and anemia. Although rare in temperate climates, it is still common in tropical and subtropical countries. In fact, about 290 million people become infected and more than 400,000 die each year.

Now new work led by Spanish scientists has taken a significant step towards discovering the hidden formula that stimulates the first defense barrier against this pathology. To date, there have been no methods that could analyze the elements of this first immune wall on a large scale.

For the authors, these results provide crucial information for the development of Vaccinations and treatments, as it helps identify possible useful proteins to fight infectious diseases.

In addition, the method has shown that it can distinguish between people with and without malaria at the time of sampling, indicating its potential for diagnosing infections in early stages.

A quick and reliable method

Researchers from the Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid, the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and the Complutense de Madrid, together with specialists from Ghana, have discovered a method to identify the specific signatures of the innate immune response in our body. These are the proteins recognized by IgM antibodies that represent our first defense barrier against infections.

The process consists of isolating antibodies from the patient's serum to bring them into contact with the proteins of the pathogen (virus, bacteria or parasites) and select only those that are recognized. So, by analyzing samples from a region where malaria is endemic, the team identified 110 proteins linked to the IgM response against the malaria parasite.

This method developed as part of this research provides a rapid and reliable way to identify proteins associated with a more specific immune response to better understand how our immune system responds to infections. According to experts, it is an effective and powerful tool for exploring the keys that trigger the innate immune response, something that was not possible before.