FIG 8.

Inhibition of P. falciparum NF54 parasite development by anti-PfCelTOS polyclonal antibodies in A. stephensi mosquitoes. Pooled mouse sera (n = 16) from different vaccine groups (groups 1 to 5) collected on day 38 after the first immunization were admixed with mature P. falciparum NF54 cultured gametocytes and fed to A. stephensi mosquitoes (n = 50/cup) in standard membrane feeding assays (SMFAs). Pooled normal mouse serum (NMS) (n = 30 randomly selected from 160 female BALB/c mice before immunization) was used as the negative control. On days 9 to 10 after feeding, the mosquitoes’ midguts were dissected, and oocyst counts, which revealed the successful development of P. falciparum in A. stephensi mosquitoes, were recorded. Two separate membrane feeds were done using serum from each vaccine group (groups 1 to 5), and oocyst counts were pooled for statistical analysis. The dots represent the numbers of oocysts in individual mosquitoes, and the horizontal and vertical lines indicate the arithmetic means and standard deviations (SD) of oocyst counts, respectively. The prevalence of infected mosquitoes in the vaccine groups (groups 1 to 5) and the control group (NMS), range of oocyst numbers, mean number of oocysts, percent inhibition relative to the NMS control group, and multiple comparisons of different vaccine groups and the NMS control group are indicated in the table. A two-tailed Mann-Whitney U test and Fisher’s exact test were used to estimate the differences in infection intensity and prevalence, respectively, using IBM SPSS 20.0 for Windows. MCQ, MPL/CpG/QS-21.