Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have identified over 250 proteins that are strongly affected by malaria, which could help predict the severity of the disease and thus enable faster treatment for the most critical patients.
The study, published in the journal Immunity, was conducted on 72 adult travellers diagnosed with malaria at Karolinska University Hospital after returning from tropical regions.
By analysing blood samples from these individuals, who were followed for a year, the researchers were able to identify around 700 proteins that changed during the infection, of which over 250 were strongly affected. In this way, the researchers were able to map proteins in the blood, which made it possible, among other things, to group patients according to the severity of the disease.
"Malaria can quickly become life-threatening, but it is difficult to predict at an early stage which patients are at risk of deterioration. Our results show how a set of proteins can help identify high-risk patients more quickly and enable more effective treatment," says Anna Färnert, professor at the Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet, and senior physician at Karolinska University Hospital, who led the study together with Christopher Sundling at the same institution.
Through data-driven analysis, the researchers were able to link the proteins to specific immune cells and identify the organs from which the proteins originate.
'In this study, we have been able to measure such a large number of proteins with high precision in the blood of malaria patients for the first time. This provides completely new and detailed insights into the immune system's response to the infection,' says first author Maximilian Julius Lautenbach, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet.
The researchers emphasise that further studies are needed to validate these findings in larger patient groups and to explore the potential clinical applications of the protein signatures.
See the study for funders and any conflicts of interest.
Publication: "Integrated proteomics and single-cell transcriptomics reveal immune dynamics and severity markers in acute Plasmodium falciparum malaria", Maximilian Julius Lautenbach, Katja Wyss, Victor Yman, Fariba Foroogh, Donya Satarvandi, Zaynab Mousavian, Klara Sondén, Jun Wang, María Bueno Álvez, Sofia Bergström, Peter Nilsson, Fredrik Edfors, Petter Brodin, Mathias Uhlén, Christopher Sundling, Anna Färnert, Immunity, online July 14, 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2025.06.014
Facts about malaria:
Plasmodium falciparum is the parasite that causes the most severe forms of malaria. According to the WHO, there were an estimated 263 million cases of malaria globally in 2023, an increase of 11 million compared to the previous year. The number of deaths from malaria was approximately 597,000 in the same year.
The African region is the most affected, accounting for 94 per cent of all malaria cases and 95 per cent of deaths in 2023. Children under five are particularly vulnerable, accounting for approximately 76 per cent of all malaria-related deaths in the region.
Source: WHO
