Malaria: New Information Linked To Parasite Reveals Treatment For Disease

Scientists at the Medical Research Council's (MRC) Toxicology Unit based at the University of Leicester and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have identified a key protein, called kinase, that may help to stop the malaria parasite that thrives in the blood stream. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

Malaria is the result of a parasite that lives inside an infected mosquito and is then transferred from a human through a bite. As it stands, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that malaria infects over 200 million people worldwide, accounting for over 500,000 deaths per year-many of which occur among in children living in Africa where a child dies every minute of malaria, with the disease accounting for 20 percent of all childhood deaths, according to officials.

"Tackling malaria is a global challenge, with the parasite continually working to find ways to survive our drug treatments," Professor Patrick Maxwell, chair of the MRC's Molecular and Cellular Medicine Board, said in a news release. "By combining a number of techniques to piece together how the malaria parasite survives, this study opens the door on potential new treatments that could find and exploit the disease's weak spots but with limited side-effects for patients."

Once inside the body, parasites work their way around with the help of a complex process that allows them entry into key proteins needed to survive in red blood cells. Yet during the study, researchers prevented the protein from working by killing the parasite off--a discovery they believe could be the first step in developing a new drug to treat malaria.

During the study, researchers used state-of-the-art methods to dissect biochemical pathways involved in keeping the malaria parasite alive, including an approach known as chemical genetics where synthetic chemicals involved a combination that introduced genetic changes to the DNA of the parasite.

Researchers found that the protein kinase (PfPKG) actually plays a central role in the parasites overall survival in the blood. And with a better understanding of the pathways in which the parasite lives to survive, they are hopeful that future drugs designed with very little toxicity could help to kill of the parasite, making them safe for even children and pregnant women.

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