Scientists investigate malarial hijacking mechanism
11/07/2008
A team of Australian scientists has published new research into the precise mechanism through which the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum attacks human hosts.
The study has uncovered an arsenal of hither-to unidentified proteins which are instrumental in allowing the parasite to hijack and re-design human red blood cells.
"It's a nice piece of biology revealing how the parasite survives in and totally changes red blood cells," commented Alan Cowman of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.
He went on to say that scientists will now look at ways of developing drugs that could inhibit the process, which ultimately leaves the oxygen-carrying cells stiff, sticky and unable to function effectively.
Malaria is widely regarded as one of the world's most pressing health crises, and experts have long been investigating ways of combating the disease.
Much attention is presently focused on providing insecticide-treated bed nets that ward off parasite-carrying mosquitoes, but with this latest study - the largest of its kind ever attempted - an entirely new avenue of research has opened up.
"We have used a gene knockout approach on a scale not previously attempted in this organism to address the role of Plasmodium falciparum proteins that are exported into the parasite-infected erythrocyte," the researchers wrote.
"Collectively these proteins act like the secretion systems seen in bacteria in which pathogenicity arises from secreted proteins that interact with host cells by direct injection or by their presence in the extra-cellular milieu."
Malaria infects 350 to 500 million people each year, resulting in over one million deaths - 90 per cent of which occur in Africa.
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