• Vaccine Name: FMP1/AS02A
• Target Pathogen: Plasmodium spp.
• Target Disease: Malaria
• Vaccine Ontology ID: VO_0000777
• Type: Subunit vaccine
• Antigen: Apical membrane antigen 1 (AMA-1) is an asexual blood stage antigen. AMA-1 is considered to be an important candidate malaria vaccine antigen (Morais et al., 2006; Polhemus et al., 2007).
• AMA1 from P. falciparum 3D7 gene engineering:
  • Type: Recombinant protein preparation
  • Description:
  • Detailed Gene Information: Click Here.
• Adjuvant:
  • Adjuvant name:
  • VO adjuvant ID: VO_0001264
  • Description: The Plasmodium falciparum vaccine candidate FMP2.1/AS02A , a recombinant E coli-expressed protein based upon the apical membrane antigen-1 (AMA-1 ) of the 3D7 clone formulated with the AS02A adjuvant(Polhemus et al., 2007)
• Preparation: FMP2.1 antigen represents amino acids #83-531 of the P. falciparum (clone 3D7) AMA-1 protein. Just prior to immunization, the lyophilized FMP2.1 protein was mixed with AS02A such that approximately 8, 20 or 40 μg of FMP2.1 was delivered in a final volume of 0.5 mL of AS02A (Polhemus et al., 2007).

Human Response

• Vaccination Protocol: An open-label, staggered-start, dose-escalating Phase I trial was conducted in 23 malaria-naïve volunteers who received 8, 20 or 40 μg of FMP2.1 in a fixed volume of 0.5 mL of AS02A on a 0, 1, and 2 month schedule. Nineteen of 23 volunteers received all three scheduled immunizations (Polhemus et al., 2007).
• Immune Response: All volunteers seroconverted after second immunization as determined by ELISA. Immune sera recognized sporozoites and merozoites by immunofluorescence assay (IFA), and exhibited both growth inhibition and processing inhibition activity against homologous (3D7) asexual stage parasites. Post-immunization, peripheral blood mononuculear cells exhibited FMP2.1-specific lymphoproliferation and IFN-γ and IL-5 ELISPOT assay responses (Polhemus et al., 2007).
• Side Effects: The most frequent solicited local and systemic adverse events associated with immunization were injection site pain (68%) and headache (29%). There were no significant laboratory abnormalities or vaccine-related serious adverse events.