Innate immunity to malaria

Abstract

The innate immune response to malaria has always attracted the interest of researchers trying to understand the basis for the high fevers observed in malaria patients during blood-stage infection and the lack of an apparent response to the liver-stage infection. Research targeting specific parts of the immune response has contributed to a basic understanding of the concepts that play a role in malaria-induced inflammation. Given the complexity of the immune response in general and to the parasite in particular, some findings have been contradictory. Here we summarize a large body of work including the host innate immune response to a Plasmodium liver and blood-stage infection, focusing on the different parasite- and host-derived molecules that trigger inflammation, the immune cell types involved, and the role of different cytokines in inflammation and pathology of malaria.