Abstract
Current knowledge about liver responses to blood-stage malaria and their modulation by vaccination is still unclear. This study investigated effects of protective vaccination on liver gene and lincRNA expression of Balb/c mice at early prepatency of
Plasmodium chabaudi
blood-stage malaria. When a blood-stage vaccine was used to induce > 80% survival of otherwise lethal malaria, significant differences (
p
< 0.01) were detectable in global liver gene expression between vaccination-protected (potentially surviving) and non-protected non-vaccinated mice on day 1
p.i.
. In the livers of protected mice, gene expression microarrays identified 224 and 419 genes, whose expression was up- and downregulated by > 3-fold, respectively. There were 24 genes upregulated by > 10-fold, including 10 IFN-inducible genes encompassing GTPases
Irgm1
,
2
, and
3
, and guanylate-binding protein
Gbp11
, the IL-1 decoy receptors
Il1f9
and
Il1ra1
, the
Il6
gene, and the gene for facilitated glucose transportation. Moreover, the IL-18 decoy receptor gene
Il18bp
,
Gzmb
, the genes
Lif
and
Osmr
encoding proteins of the IL-6 family, and the taurine transporter gene
Slc6a6
were expressed > 3-fold in vaccinated mice. The genes
Gbp10
,
6
,
4
were expressed by > 50% in vaccination-protected than in non-vaccinated mice. In addition, 43 lincRNA species were up- and 36 downregulated. Our data suggested novel regulatory elements of potential anti-malaria activity activated by protective vaccination in the liver, evidenced in response to early prepatent infections in vaccination-protected mice of otherwise lethal blood-stage malaria of
P. chabaudi
.