Abstract:
The sporozoite threonine-asparagine-rich protein (STARP) of Plasmodium falciparum is located on the membrane of sporozoites and has been considered a potential candidate for malaria vaccine development. Recent studies have shown that synthetic peptides derived from STARP bind efficiently to hepatocytes in culture. Furthermore, antibodies directed against STARP are capable of blocking sporozoite invasion into hepatocytes, suggesting that the protein plays a crucial role in the process of hepatic invasion by sporozoites. Meanwhile, most malarial surface proteins exhibit sequence polymorphism among isolates that could hinder an effective malaria vaccine design. To date, the extent of sequence variation in the P. falciparum STARP gene from clinical isolates remains unknown. From 2004 to 2005, we recruited 52 blood samples from patients who got P.falciparum infections from Tak and Kanchanaburi Provinces for analysis. The STARP gene was amplified by the polymerase chain reaction spanning the entire gene, followed by direct sequencing. Results revealed that 8 of these isolates harbored multiple STARP alleles whose sequences could not be determined by direct sequencing method. Thus, 44 sequences of the remaining isolates were compared with the sequence of clone T9/96. In total, 4 nucleotide substitutions were observed and all substituted codons resulted in amino acid exchanges. Importantly, most of the altered amino acids retained their physicochemical properties, suggesting that some functional or structural constraints occurred in this protein. Besides, insertion/deletion of the repeat units was found in the 45-amino acid repeats and the 10-amino acid repeat region, accounting for a minor variation in size of this gene among isolates. Therefore, limited sequence variation in STARP of P. falciparum has encouraged malaria vaccine incorporation.