Protective Immunity against Severe Malaria in Children Is Associated with a Limited Repertoire of Antibodies to Conserved PfEMP1 Variants (Cell Host & Microbe)

Identifying targets of antimalarial immunity is essential for vaccine development but compromised by the enormous diversity of malaria parasite surface antigens. Tessema et al. show that severe malaria immunity targets a subset of antigenically conserved parasite proteins, whereas clinical immunity requires a broad repertoire of antibodies to diverse proteins.