Last Updated: 04/12/2025
Molecular mechanisms of bone-specific immunopathology during malaria
Objectives
*Original title and text were machine translated from Japanese
This project investigated possible negative impact of malaria infection on bone remodeling and growth.
Malaria has deadly complications; however, the long term pathological consequences of chronic malaria infection are poorly understood. It is suspected that there is an association between growth retardation and malaria infection. Using mouse models mimicking chronic and self-clearing Plasmodium infection we showed that infection causes significant and long term bone loss in adult mice and growth retardation in young mice. Bone remodeling is completely suppressed during the acute phase of infection, but is highly activated immediately after the clearance of parasites, with increased osteoclastic activity skewing the balance toward bone resorption. Osteoclasts are activated by the key osteclastogenic cytokine RANKL, which was upregulated in osteoblasts through MyD88-dependent inflammation, triggered by the accumulation and long term persistence of parasite products in the bone marrow.
Apr 2016 — Mar 2019
$158,891
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