Drug treatment of malaria infections can reduce levels of protection transferred to offspring via maternal immunity
Vincent Staszewski1,*,
Sarah E. Reece1,2,?,
Aidan J. O'Donnell2 and
Emma J. A. Cunningham1,2,?
1Centre for Infection Immunity and Evolution, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK
2Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK
↵*Author for correspondence (vincent.staszewski{at}merial.com).
↵? These authors contributed equally to the study.
Abstract
Maternally transferred immunity can have a fundamental effect on the ability of offspring to deal with infection. However, levels of antibodies in adults can vary both quantitatively and qualitatively between individuals and during the course of infection. How infection dynamics and their modification by drug treatment might affect the protection transferred to offspring remains poorly understood. Using the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium chabaudi, we demonstrate that curing dams part way through infection prior to pregnancy can alter their immune response, with major consequences for offspring health and survival. In untreated maternal infections, maternally transferred protection suppressed parasitaemia and reduced pup mortality by 75 per cent compared with pups from na?ve dams. However, when dams were treated with anti-malarial drugs, pups received fewer maternal antibodies, parasitaemia was only marginally suppressed, and mortality risk was 25 per cent higher than for pups from dams with full infections. We observed the same qualitative patterns across three different host strains and two parasite genotypes. This study reveals the role that within-host infection dynamics play in the fitness consequences of maternally transferred immunity. Furthermore, it highlights a potential trade-off between the health of mothers and offspring suggesting that anti-parasite treatment may significantly affect the outcome of infection in newborns.
passive immunity
neonatal immunology
immunoglobulins
anti-malarial drugs
Plasmodium chabaudi
maternal effects
Footnotes
Received July 25, 2011.
Accepted February 1, 2012.
This journal is ? 2012 The Royal Society
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
