Malaria is a devastating disease that continues to affect millions of people worldwide every year. Specifically, Plasmodium falciparum is the most common human malaria parasite, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. P. falciparum causes the most malignant and debilitating symptoms with the highest mortality and complication rates. Even with the worldwide efforts of many researchers and organizations, the road to discovering a vaccine has been difficult and challenging. Due do to the improvements in in vitro liver stage assays as well as rodent models of mammalian malaria, pre-erythrocytic stages of malaria have become a more accessible target for experimental studies. These vaccine candidates target Plasmodium sporozoites in the liver and liver stages to prevent development to the blood-stage forms, which is responsible for the debilitating symptoms of the disease. Scanning electron microscopy has been used for decades to provide insight on the morphology and topography of specimens, which cannot be seen through a light microscope. The purpose of this study was to analyze the morphology of sporozoites with some target antibodies. Sporozoites have previously shown uncharacterized appearances and development in an immunofluorescent stain at different concentrations of particular antibodies. With this further understanding on the morphological impact few of the target antibodies have on sporozoites through scanning electron microscopy, further grasp can be acquired.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USF/oai:scholarcommons.usf.edu:etd-7876 |
| Date | 24 March 2017 |
| Creators | Bera, Sagorika |
| Publisher | Scholar Commons |
| Source Sets | University of South Flordia |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | default |
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