Journal article

Importance of antibody and complement for oxidative burst and killing of invasive nontyphoidal Salmonella by blood cells in Africans

EN Gondwe, ME Molyneux, M Goodall, SM Graham, P Mastroeni, MT Drayson, CA MacLennan

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | Published : 2010

Abstract

Bacteremia caused by nontyphoidal strains of Salmonella is endemic among African children. Case-fatality rates are high and antibiotic resistance increasing, but no vaccine is currently available. T cells are important for clearance of Salmonella infection within macrophages, but in Africa, invasive Salmonella disease usually manifests in the blood and affects children between 4 months and 2 y of age, when anti-Salmonella antibody is absent. We have previously found a role for complement-fixing bactericidal antibody in protecting these children. Here we show that opsonic activity of antibody and complement is required for oxidative burst and killing of Salmonella by blood cells in Africans. ..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Medical Research Council


Funding Acknowledgements

We thank the parents, guardians, and children who participated in this study. We are grateful to Mr. Paul Pensulo and nurses Meraby Funsani and Grace Mwimaniwa for their help in recruiting children and Professor Elizabeth Molyneux and Professor Eric Borgstein and the staff at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Beit Cure International Hospital, and the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme for their assistance. We thank Dr. Robert Kingsley ( Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute) for providing the galE<SUP>-</SUP> mutant of S. Typhimurium D23580. This work was supported by a PhD studentship from the Training Committee of the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme( to E.N.G.), a Tropical Research Fellowship ( to C. A. M.) and a Programme Grant ( to M.E.M.) from the Wellcome Trust, and a Clinical Research Fellowship from GlaxoSmithKline ( to C. A. M.).