A protein within the malaria parasite that seems to be crucial to its survival as it develops within a mosquito could present a new therapeutic target to prevent malaria in people.
Malaria infects more than 200 million people per year and is responsible for more than one million deaths, many of which are children in Africa, where the disease is endemic. Some strains--called Plasmodium--are becoming increasingly resistant to current therapies, and as such, malaria remains an obstacle to economic progress in developing countries.
A team of researchers at St. George's University of London found that when the protein CAX--a transporter that keeps the cells' calcium levels in check--is absent during the parasite's sexual reproduction stages inside a mosquito, the parasite dies before it has a chance to fully develop. This calcium transporter protein plays a role in protecting the parasite from potentially lethal levels of calcium during these stages, scientists found. The research has been published in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.
The findings suggest that targeting the parasite's sexual reproduction stages could possibly be a new therapeutic approach to treating malaria. Current malaria drugs do not block the transmission of the parasite from human to mosquito and instead target the parasite's asexual reproduction cells, which spread infection by multiplying inside the red blood cells of the host.
In a mouse malaria model, scientists removed the gene from which CAX is produced. Malaria parasites without this working calcium transporter grew normally inside their animal host, but they did not survive after being ingested into a mosquito's gut--the stage at which the parasite should begin sexual reproduction and multiply. When researchers removed the calcium surrounding the parasite at this stage, it was able to develop normally again.
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