Prospects and Pitfalls of Pregnancy-Associated Malaria Vaccination Based on the Natural Immune Response to Plasmodium falciparum VAR2CSA-Expressing Parasites

Figure 3

The duffy binding-like domains of the VAR2CSA molecule. Between each DBL region is an interdomain region that appears to be important for both binding properties and antibody induction. Each region has a differing degree of affinity for the CSA molecule on the placenta and individually the domains do not appear to display as strong binding ability as the whole VAR2CSA molecule. Recent evidence suggests that the first four domains are the most important for forming a quaternary structure that forms a complex binding site [228].