A Proposed Mouse Model For Childhood Malaria And Immunity

CD4+ T cells are imperative in the immune response to infections, but the immune response to malaria, especially in young children, is poorly understood, due to a lack of a young rodent animal model to study the pathogenesis of the disease. In this thesis, we focused on developing, a young mouse (pup) malaria model to help understand the immune response and development of protective CD4+ T cells. Using day 14-17 old pups, we are able to replicate childhood malaria in mice. We demonstrate that pups suffer severe malaria that results in decreased scores on behavioral and neurological tests. Malaria also induced stunted growth in the infected pups and a 60% mortality. We demonstrate that pup splenocytes proliferate faster than adult cells. But purified CD4+ T cells from pups spleens proliferate slower compared to CD4+ T cells from the adult mice. This suggests that there is yet to be described immune population in the pup splenocytes that is protective and proliferate better than the CD4+ T cells. Therefore, future studies will determine other immune cells other than CD4+ T cells that could be protective in young mice. These studies will open avenues for vaccine design for this deadly malaria disease and other chronic infections.