Immunization Against East Coast Fever: Broad Based T. parva Gene Delivery/antigen Presentation through Mini-gene Technology

Malaria and East Coast Fever (ECF) are severe, often lethal infections caused by the arthropod-borne apicomplexan hemoparasites Plasmodium falciparum and Theileria parva, respectively. Malaria infects over 200 million people annually, killing over 600,000 of these individuals, 75% of whom are children in sub-Saharan Africa. ECF kills over one million cattle in sub-Saharan Africa each year, resulting in extreme financial hardship and food shortages for smallholder farmers. As intracellular parasites, immune control of Malaria and ECF is in part dependent upon the development a robust, MHC class I-restricted CD8+ T-lymphocyte response. The development of vaccines for these diseases is imperative; however, due to MHC restriction of outbred species and the complexity of these protozoan, all next generation vaccines tested have failed to reproduce premonition. The objective is to test the hypothesis that immunization of cattle with a mini-gene library of selected T. parva genes provides protective immune responses against Theileria parva.