West African Fulani exhibit a strikingly different susceptibility to malaria compared to sympatric Mossi, Rimaibé and Dogon. Despite being exposed to similar epidemiological contexts and parasite inoculation rates, Fulani show clear differences in their response to malaria at parasitological, clinical, and immunological level. Traditional genetic malaria protective factors such as hemoglobin (Hb) S, HbC, G6PD deficiency, or HLA class I and II, are not involved in this protection. Several experimental observations point to a hyper immune reactivity of Fulani, perhaps as a consequence of a functional deficit of T regulatory cells in this ethnic group. Micro RNAs (miRNAs) are well known post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression which, as part of complex regulatory networks, participate to practically every aspect of cell life, from cell growth and differentiation to development and immunity. Micro RNAs are found not only in cells and tissues but also in animal body fluids (e.g. serum, urine, saliva, cerebrospinal fluid); here they circulate either associated to Argonaute proteins or within extracellular vesicles (microvesicles and exosomes), which protect them from degradation and appear to play roles in cell-cell communication. Moreover, growing evidence suggest that they are important modulators of development and function in the immune system. With the aim to shed some light on the molecular basis of the different susceptibility to malaria exhibited by Fulani and Mossi from Burkina Faso, we propose here to analyze and characterize the miRNA populations of individuals from these two ethnic groups and verify if differences in miRNA repertoires from serum or peripheral blood mononuclear cells may help explain their different resistance to malaria.
