Background
Malaria is a disease caused by plasmodial parasite infection of host erythrocytes. The blood stage of
Plasmodium causes the pathobiology of malaria by invasion and subsequent modification of human erythrocytes. Therefore, the search for candidate vaccine antigens against malaria parasites has mainly focused on blood-stage parasite antigens, especially those located on the surface or in the apical organelles of the merozoite, such as rhoptries and micronemes [
1]. In the case of
Plasmodium vivax, using serological assays, a number of blood-stage proteins that are potential blood-stage vaccine candidates were screened in our previous study [
2]. The antigenicity, immunogenicity, function, and subcellular localization of these proteins including merozoite surface protein 1 paralog (MSP1P) [
3,
4], Pv41 [
5], PvMSP10 [
6], Pv12 [
7], and RhopH2 [
8] were also evaluated.
Apicomplexan parasites, such as
Toxoplasma gondii and
Plasmodium species, actively invade host cells through a moving junction (MJ) complex assembled at the parasite–host cell interface [
9]. Major apical organelle proteins are involved in this serial invasion process, and the rhoptry neck protein RON complex together with the micronemal protein AMA1 forms the MJ [
10,
11]. However, some rhoptry proteins are released during invasion and migrate to the lumen or membrane of the nascent parasitophorous vacuole or the interior of the host cell, rather than to the MJ [
12].
The rhoptry-associated leucine (Leu) zipper-like protein 1 of
Plasmodium falciparum (PfRALP1) was first identified by a high degree of protein sequence homology among field isolates, and translocates from the rhoptry neck to the MJ during merozoite invasion [
13]. Attempts to knock out
pfralp1 were unsuccessful [
14], which suggests that it might play an important role in invasion of malaria parasites. Recently, an erythrocyte-binding epitope in the C-terminal region of PfRALP1 was identified, it was shown that anti-RALP1 antibodies disrupted MJ formation, and growth and invasion inhibition assays confirmed the important role of PfRALP1 during merozoite invasion of erythrocytes [
13]. Six orthologs of PfRALP1 have been found in different
Plasmodium species [
15]. Comparative analysis of the deduced amino acid sequences of the PfRALP1 and
P. vivax RALP1 (PvRALP1) revealed an overall sequence identity of ~67% and similarity of ~83% [
16]. Through liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, PvRALP1 has been identified in clinical isolates [
17,
18] and the VCG-1 strain, and
in silico modelling predicted it as a vaccine candidate [
19]. All RALP1 orthologs include coiled-coil region(s); these regions are targets for antibody recognition and these antibodies may be possibly protective [
20].
Profiling of PfRALP1 has shown its robust immunogenicity among blood-stage antigens of
P. falciparum [
13,
21]. As an ortholog of PfRALP1, PvRALP1 is also likely to be immunogenic during malaria parasite infection in humans [
16]. In this study, strong antigenicity and immunogenicity of PvRALP1, and its localization in the rhoptry neck of merozoites of
P. vivax were demonstrated.
Methods
Blood samples of Plasmodium vivax patients
A total of 112 blood samples (mean parasitaemia 0.117%, range 0.002–0.630%) were obtained from patients who were confirmed positive for P. vivax malaria via microscopy at Kangwon National University Hospital and at local health centres and clinics in Gangwon Province, which is a malaria-endemic area of the Republic of Korea. The mean age of patients was 27 years (range 18–61 years). Eighty blood samples were also taken from healthy individuals in nonmalaria-endemic areas, who were confirmed negative for P. vivax malaria by microscopy, and had no previous history of malaria. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Kangwon National University Hospital and all the blood samples were collected after obtaining informed consent.
Enrichment of parasite-infected erythrocytes for parasite antigen
Plasmodium vivax-infected blood samples were collected from patients and parasite-infected erythrocytes were purified as reported previously [
22]. White blood cells were removed from infected patient samples using a Plasmodipur filter (Euro-Diagnostica, Arnhem, The Netherlands), and the erythrocytes resuspended in RPMI-1640 medium (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA) to make a 10% haematocrit suspension. Thereafter, schizont-rich infected erythrocytes were enriched by 60% Percoll gradient centrifugation and used as a source of parasite antigens for western blot and immunofluorescence analyses.
Expression and purification of recombinant PvRALP1 proteins
Genomic DNA was prepared from Korean isolates of
P. vivax as described previously [
16]. The full-length of
pvralp1 comprising amino acid 1 to 675 was amplified from genomic DNA with the forward primer RALP1-F: 5′-ATGAAGCGGAGCATCGC-3′ and reverse primer RALP1-R: 5′-CTAGAACATGTCGTAGAGCAGGC-3′. The PCR amplification was performed on a MyCycler Thermal Cycler (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA, USA) using the following temperature profile: 95°C for 4 min; 30 cycles at 95°C for 30 sec, 53°C for 30 sec, 72°C for 2 min; and a final extension at 72°C for 10 min. The resulting PCR product was cloned into the pCR2.1 TOPO vector (Invitrogen). Automated DNA sequence analysis of the cloned vector was performed using an ABI Prism 3730XL DNA Sequencer (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA). The predicted protein domains of PvRALP1 were further analysed using the Simple Modular Architecture Research Tool (SMART) [
23] and SOSUIsignal [
24].
To express the two recombinant PvRALP1 proteins, the open reading frame of
pvralp1 without the signal peptide sequence (
pvralp1-ecto; comprising amino acids 31 to 675) was amplified with the forward primer RALP1-Ecto F: 5′-atcactagtt
ctcgagATGGCGTACCGCCTAAAGAGG-3′ and the reverse primer RALP1-Ecto R: 5′-ccctatatat
ggatccTCACTAGAACATGTCGTAGAGCAGGC-3′, and the truncated
pvralp1 (
pvralp1-tr; comprising amino acids 257 to 503) with a hexa-histidine (His)-tag at the C-terminus was amplified with the forward primer RALP1-Tr-F: 5′-atcactagtt
ctcgagATGACCTACGCGAGCTACGAAC-3′ and reverse primer RALP1-Tr-R: 5′-ccctatatat
ggatccTCAGTGATGATGATGATGATGTCAATTTAGCAAATTAGAGACGATGTTCTG-3′. The vector sequences are shown in lowercase, and the restriction enzyme sites (
XhoI for sense primers and
BamHI for antisense primers) in italics. The underlined sequences in the antisense primers above indicate the regions that encode the His-tag. The amplified DNA sequences of
pvralp1-ecto and
pvralp1-tr were cloned into the
XhoI and
BamHI sites of the pEU-E01-GST-TEV-MCS-N2 and pEU-E01-MCS vectors (CellFree Sciences, Matsuyama, Japan), respectively. Plasmid DNA was then prepared using the Maxi Plus™ Ultrapure plasmid extraction system (Viogene, Taipei, Taiwan) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Purified plasmid DNA was eluted in 0.1× TE buffer (10 mM Tris–HCl, pH 8.0, 1 mM EDTA) and used for
in vitro transcription for recombinant protein expression in the wheat germ cell-free (WGCF) system (CellFree Sciences). Glutathione
S-transferase (GST) fusion PvRALP1-Ecto protein was purified with a glutathione-Sepharose 4B column according to the manufacturer’s instructions (GE Healthcare, Camarillo, CA, USA). PvRALP1-Tr protein with a His-tag at the C-terminus was purified using nickel nitrile-triacetic acid (Ni-NTA) affinity chromatography as described elsewhere [
25].
Immunization of mice and rabbit with recombinant PvRALP1s
To generate antibodies against PvRALP1-Ecto or PvRALP-Tr, three BALB/c mice for each protein were immunized subcutaneously with 20 μg per mouse of purified protein in Freund’s complete adjuvant, followed by two injections of 20 μg in Freund’s incomplete adjuvant three weeks and six weeks later. In addition, one Japanese white rabbit was immunized subcutaneously with 250 μg of purified PvRALP1-Tr in Freund’s complete adjuvant, followed by two injections of 250 μg in Freund’s incomplete adjuvant three weeks and six weeks later. The antisera were collected 14 days after the last immunization. Animal experimental protocols were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Ehime University and Kangwon National University, and the experiments were conducted according to the Ethical Guidelines for Animal Experiments of Ehime University and Kangwon National University.
SDS-PAGE and western blot analysis
The parasite proteins were extracted in reducing sample buffer for SDS-PAGE. Five micrograms of recombinant PvRALP1-Ecto or PvRALP1-Tr protein were loaded into each well and separated by SDS-PAGE under reducing conditions. The separated proteins were transferred to 0.45 μm polyvinylidene fluoride membranes (Millipore, Billerica, MA, USA) in a semidry transfer buffer (50 mM Tris, 190 mM glycine, 3.5 mM SDS, 20% methanol) at 400 mA for 40 min using a semidry blotting system (ATTO Corp., Tokyo, Japan). After blocking with 5% skim milk in phosphate-buffered saline containing 0.2% Tween 20 (PBS-T), the membranes were probed with mouse anti-PvRALP1-Ecto and anti-PvRALP1-Tr sera, rabbit anti-PvRALP1-Tr serum, anti-GST monoclonal antibody (Novagen, Madison, WI, USA), anti-penta-His monoclonal antibody (Qiagen), preimmune mouse serum, pooled sera from P. vivax malaria patients or noninfected individuals, all diluted 1:200 in PBS-T. IRDye goat anti-mouse, IRDye goat anti-rabbit, or IRDye goat anti-human sera (LI-COR Biosciences, Lincoln, NE, USA) were used to detect recombinant proteins according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Data were scanned with an Odyssey infrared imaging system (LI-COR Biosciences) and analysed with Odyssey software (LI-COR Biosciences).
Serum screening using protein arrays
Sera from 112 patients with
P. vivax malaria and 80 healthy individuals were tested against the recombinant PvRALP1-Ecto and PvRALP1-Tr proteins using protein arrays. A series of doubling dilutions was used to optimize the coating antigen concentration (3 to 200 ng/μL) of each recombinant protein. As a result, one microlitre of 50 ng/μL recombinant PvRALP1-Ecto or PvRALP1-Tr proteins were spotted onto each well of an amino-functionalized slide and incubated for 2 h at 37°C. The arrays were first blocked with 5% bovine serum albumin in PBS-T for 1 h at 37°C, then they were probed with human serum (1:10) that was preabsorbed against wheat germ lysate (1:100) to remove anti-wheat germ antibodies. The arrays were incubated with serum in PBS-T for 1 h at 37°C and antibodies were visualized with 10 ng/μL Alexa Fluor 546 goat anti-human immunoglobulin G (IgG; Invitrogen) diluted in PBS-T, and scanned in a fluorescence scanner (ScanArray Express; PerkinElmer, Boston, MA, USA) [
7]. Fluorescence intensities of array spots were quantified by the fixed-circle method using ScanArray Express software (version 4.0; PerkinElmer). The positive cutoff value was calculated as the mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of the negative controls plus 2 standard deviations (SD).
To investigate the human IgG subclasses comprising the response against PvRALP1-Ecto and PvRALP1-Tr, sera from fifty P. vivax-positive patients from malaria-endemic areas and ten P. vivax-negative sera from malaria nonendemic areas of Korea were randomly selected. One microlitre of 50 ng/mL PvRALP1-Ecto and PvRALP1-Tr proteins were spotted onto each well and incubated for 2 h at 37°C. After blocking, plasma was added in duplicate at previously determined dilutions. For measurement of IgG subclasses, mouse monoclonal antibodies to human IgG subclasses (IgG1, clone HP6096, IgG2 clone HP6002, IgG3 clone HP6047, and IgG4 clone HP6025 [Invitrogen]) as secondary antibodies were added at a dilution of 1:1,000. Alexa Fluor 546 goat anti-mouse antibody (Invitrogen) was added at 50 ng/μL as the tertiary antibody for the subclass assays. Finally, the data from scanned images were analysed as above.
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
To compare the IgG subclasses in anti-PvRALP1 and anti-PvRALP1-Tr immune mouse sera, PvRALP1-Ecto (5 μg/mL) or PvRALP1-Tr (5 μg/mL) was coated on 96-well ELISA plates. One hundred microlitres of purified mouse IgG1, IgG2a, IgG2b, and IgG3 (BD Pharmingen Corp., San Diego, CA, USA) as standards were also coated on 96-well plates at 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, and 4 ng/mL. The coated plates were incubated with immune mouse sera diluted 1:1,000 in PBS-T. After washing, the plates were incubated with horseradish peroxidase-conjugated anti-mouse IgG1, IgG2a, IgG2b, and IgG3 antibodies (Invitrogen) at 1:1,000, 1:1,000, 1:2,000, and 1:1,000 dilutions, respectively. After washing, the plates were incubated with 100 μL of tetramethylbenzidine solution and the absorbance at 450 nm was measured within 1 h after addition of the stop solution. The concentration of each IgG subclass was calculated using a log − log curve fit.
Indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA)
IFAs were performed on acetone-fixed parasites as described previously [
7]. The following primary antibody dilutions were used: mouse anti-PvRALP1-Tr (1:50), rabbit anti-PvRON2 (1:100), rabbit anti-PvDBP (1:100), and rabbit anti-PvRhopH2 (1:100). The following secondary antibodies were used: Alexa Fluor 488 goat anti-mouse IgG (1:500; Invitrogen), Alexa Fluor 546 goat anti-rabbit IgG (1:500; Invitrogen) and 4′,6′-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) for nuclear staining (1:1,000; Invitrogen). The slides were mounted in ProLong Gold antifade reagent (Invitrogen) and visualized under oil immersion in a confocal scanning laser microscope (LSM710; Carl Zeiss MicroImaging, Thornwood, NY, USA) using a Plan-Apochromat 63×/1.4 oil differential interference contrast (DIC) objective lens. Images were captured with Zen software (Carl Zeiss MicroImaging) and processed with Adobe Photoshop (Adobe Systems, San Jose, CA, USA).
Statistical analyses
Simple scatter regression was used to construct a standard curve using SigmaPlot (Systat Software Inc., San Jose, CA, USA). Data were analysed using GraphPad Prism (GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA, USA); Student’s t-test or one-way ANOVA was used to evaluate the differences between the means of each group. Differences with p < 0.05 were considered significant.
Discussion
In
P. falciparum, anti-RALP1 antibodies inhibited the merozoite invasion of erythrocytes and disrupted MJ formation, which suggested that PfRALP1 is essential for erythrocyte invasion [
13]. PfRALP1 localized in the rhoptry neck of the merozoite, and it translocated from the rhoptry neck to the MJ during merozoite invasion [
13]. In
P. vivax parasites, because of the difficulty of
in vitro culture, the function of the analog is not easy to explore. However, the immune responses to and localization of PvRALP1 could be analysed in this study. The rhoptry neck localization of PvRALP1 in merozoites and its immune profiling in
P. vivax malaria patients suggested that PvRALP1 may play a similar important role during the merozoite invasion process to that of PfRALP1 [
14].
In a previous study, the Glu-rich region of some
Plasmodium parasite proteins appeared to react strongly with human IgG antibodies [
31,
32]. The α-helical coiled-coil motifs were also targets of antibody recognition, suggesting that these antibodies may be protective against malaria vaccine candidates including liver stage antigen (LSA)-1 [
33], LSA-3 [
34], MSP-3 [
35], MSP-6 [
36], and MSP-1 [
37]; such motifs have been used for rapid identification of malaria vaccine candidates [
20]. Because of its structural similarity to PfRALP1, the immunogenicity of PvRALP1 was characterized by immune profiling of PvRALP1-Ecto and PvRALP1-Tr constructs including the Gly/Glu-rich and Leu-rich domains. Although there were no significant differences detected in either sensitivity or specificity of responses in sera from infected humans to each protein (Table
1), the intensity of IgG and IgG subclass responses to PvRALP1-Ecto were higher than those against PvRALP1-Tr, which indicates that motifs including a Gly/Glu-rich domain, a Leu-rich domain, and a coiled-coil region may be related to the immunogenicity of these proteins in infected patients.
A number of pvralp1 genomic sequences from 170 isolates obtained worldwide are available in the PlasmoDB databases and analysis for alignments showed a comparatively conserved pvralp1 gene. In addition, the total number of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in all P. vivax strains is 78, and the ratio of nonsynonymous/synonymous SNPs ratio is 2.12 (53/25). A small number of SNPs were detected that might be related to the low antibody response against the two recombinant PvRALP proteins that was observed in some patients’ sera.
Knowledge of the IgG subclass responses that are associated with protection against malaria is essential for understanding anti-malaria immunity and guiding vaccine research. IgG1 and IgG3 are the predominant subclasses produced in response to merozoite antigens in humans [
38-
41]. IgG1 and IgG3 are cytophilic and mediate phagocyte activation and complement fixation [
42]. It has been suggested that IgG3 is more efficient at mediating these processes [
42]. In the present study, both PvRALP1-Ecto and PvRALP1-Tr induced predominantly IgG3 antibodies (Figure
5), suggesting that PvRALP1 might induced functional antibodies. While the factors determining subclass responses to antigens are not clearly defined, antigen properties, host age, cumulative exposure, and genetic determinants have been linked with the nature of subclass responses [
43-
45].
The IgG subclass responses to these two antigens in immunized mice were evaluated, presuming that the noncytophilic IgG1 and IgG3 isotypes correspond to a Th2 response, whereas the cytophilic IgG2a and IgG2b correspond to a Th1 response [
46]. The results showed that a balanced Th1/Th2 response was observed to both antigens, and that IgG1 and IgG2b responses were higher (Figure
6) in PvRALP1-immunized mice than any of the other IgG subclasses. A similar IgG subclass distribution has been found in responses in mice immunized with the vaccine candidate PfMSP3 [
47], and these were able to inhibit parasite growth. An erythrocyte binding motif PvMSP1P-19 also induced predominantly IgG2b responses in immunized mice [
3]. It has been reported that the function of mouse IgG2b is similar to that of IgG3 in humans [
48], and immunoepidemiological studies have shown a significant correlation of human IgG3 antibody responses with protection acquired by natural exposure to the parasite [
49]. There was no significant inverse correlation between the level of parasitaemia and antibody levels against either PvRALP1-Ecto or PvRALP1-Tr antigens, although there was also no patient with high antibody levels and high parasitaemia (Figure
4). These findings suggest that the level of anti-PvRALP1 antibodies does not strongly contribute to the degree of inhibition of parasite growth. Furthermore, the levels of IgG2b in PvRALP1-Ecto-immunized mice were paralleled the levels of human IgG3 in sera from
P. vivax-infected patients (Figures
5 and
6).
In the present study, PvRALP1 localized to the rhoptry neck of merozoite parasites was observed (Figure
7): PvRALP1 completely colocalized with the rhoptry neck marker PvRON2. Hence, we have clearly demonstrated that PvRALP1 is likely to be a rhoptry neck protein of
P. vivax merozoites, although an immunoelectron microscopy study should be performed to confirm this. During the invasion of the merozoite, rhoptry neck proteins (i.e., RON2, RON4, RON5, and RON8) are discharged from the rhoptries to form the MJ complex with a microneme protein, AMA1, and this complex plays an important role in the invasion of erythrocytes [
50]. Thus, it is possible that, like other rhoptry neck proteins, PvRALP1 may also play an essential role in this invasion process.
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Competing interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors’ contributions
YC contributed to writing the manuscript, and YC and JL to the design and performance of the experiments. SJ produced the merozoite parasites and YC and DI performed the IFA. DHK, KSH, FL, BW, and CSL provided technical advice for this study. TT expressed and purified the recombinant proteins. ETH and TT conceived this study and contributed writing the manuscript and to critical review of the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.