Measles as a Vector for the Malaria Vaccine Development

Classical viral vectors have been successfully used to deliver Malaria, HPV antigens. Emerging viral vector technologies such as Measles virus (MV) are useful for vaccine development. Studies in animal models suggest that each viral vector is unique in its ability to induce humoral and cellular responses. Measles virus is a member of Mononegavirales thus the genomic RNA is not translated either in vivo or in vitro. MV replicates exclusively in the cytoplasm, ruling out the possibility of integration into host DNA. Live attenuated Measles (MeV) are thus inducing long lived immunity after a single immunization dose. MeV vector allows insertion and stable expression over multiple replications round of various genes from different genome positions, allowing comparable immunity against MeV proteins and vectored antigens. Hence in the present study we identified the novel target for Malaria vaccine development, N-terminal region of Merozite surface protein 1 (MSP-1). The present invention relates to a combined Measles Malaria vaccine containing different attenuated recombinant measles malaria vectors comprising a heterologus nucleic acid encoding several Plasmodium falciparum antigens. Preferably it relates to a viral vector that comprise nucleic acids encoding the circumsporozoite (CS) protein of P. falciparum, the merozoite surface protein 1 (MSP-1) of P. falciparum and its derivatives (P-42) in its glycosylated and secreted forms.