Briefly, flat-bottomed 96-well microtiter plates (Immulon 4; Dynex Technology Inc., Chantilly, Va.) were coated with 100 ng of recombinant PfAMA1 or PfMSP142 per well, incubated overnight at 4 °C (or stored at 4 °C and used within 7 days), blocked for 1 h with

Blocking Buffer (5%, w/v skim milk powder (Difco, Detroit, MI)) in Tris buffered saline (TBS) (BioFluids, Camarillo, CA) and washed with PBS-T. Consecutive dilutions of individual sera diluted in TBS containing 0.1% BSA (Sigma Chemical Co., St. Louis, MO) and 0.05% Tween-20 (Sigma) were incubated for 2 h at room temperature. The plates were washed and incubated with alkaline phosphatase conjugate-conjugated secondary p38 MAPK signaling pathway antibody (0.1 μg/well of anti-Mouse IgG (H + L) or anti-Rabbit IgG (H + L) antibody) [Kirkegaard & Perry Laboratories, Inc., Gaithersburg, MD] for 1 h. The plates were washed and developed for 20 min with 0.1 mg/well of p-nitrophenyl phosphate (Sigma 104 substrate; Sigma) diluted with coating buffer. Reactions were terminated by adding 25 μl/well of stopping buffer and the OD405 recorded. Comparative ELISA titers were calculated by using regression analysis on the titration curve. The standardized in vitro parasite growth inhibition assay was performed as described previously

[8] and [10]. Briefly, rabbit IgG OTX015 was purified from individual sera of immunized rabbits using protein-G and adjusted to a concentration of 10.0 mg/ml in incomplete RPMI 1640. IgGs obtained from rabbits on day 0 and day 84 were mixed with erythrocytes infected with the 3D7 strain of P. falciparum. After 40 h of culture, reinvasion and growth of parasites were determined by biochemical assay of parasite lactate dehydrogenase. Two concentrations most of standard rabbit anti-AMA1 IgG were included as positive controls on each GIA assay plate. Specificity of the reaction

was established by mixing AMA1 or MSP1 alone or the combination of the two antigens with the test rabbit IgG and the GIA assay was performed as usual. For analysis of the antibody measurements by ELISA and the GIA responses, initial comparisons among groups were done by Kruskal Wallis test. p values of <0.05 were considered significant. If the Kruskal Wallis analysis showed significant differences, then an additional Dunn’s test for multiple comparisons was performed. In this case a pairwise test is considered significant if its q stat value is greater than the table q value. To optimize blood stage antigens for adenovector-mediated malaria vaccine delivery, we designed Ad5 vectors that expressed different forms of AMA1 and MSP142 (3D7 strain). Both genes were codon optimized for enhanced antigen expression in mammalian cells. Four forms of AMA1 were generated (Fig. 1a).