Starving malaria parasites

A research team led by Deakin University has discovered a way to starve the malaria parasite, which in 2015 killed more than 400,000 people from an estimated 212 million cases.

Senior researcher Professor Tania de Koning-Ward, from Deakin’s Centre for Molecular and Medical Research, said malaria parasites are becoming more resistant to current malaria medications, and half the world’s population is estimated to be at risk of contracting the disease.

“We are really desperate to find new strategies to combat malaria,” she said.

Now, Professor de Koning-Ward and her colleagues have discovered how malaria parasites change the permeability of red blood cells — a process which has long eluded scientists. Their study has been published in the journal eLife.

“Malaria parasites live inside a red blood cell. They produce a group of proteins to change the permeability of the red blood cell, making it more porous, so they can absorb vital nutrients from plasma and remove toxic waste products,” Professor de Koning-Ward said.

“What we’ve shown is that if you genetically block one of these parasite proteins, you can effectively starve the parasite and it dies.”

Lead author Dr Natalie Counihan, a research fellow at Deakin’s School of Medicine, said the work is a crucial step in developing new drug targets. She noted, “Once you know what’s responsible for something, you can start designing drugs to fight that.”

The work was published alongside two other papers from research groups in the UK and USA who used different approaches to also show this parasite protein, and another protein it interacts with, are critical for red blood cell permeability.

“The fact that three research groups have independently come to the same conclusion is a real strength and means that we can now get on with designing drugs to block these pathways.”

Image courtesy of Andrew Mason under CC BY 2.0