NEW ANTIMALARIAL TARGET IS FOUND

Abstract

SCIENTISTS HAVE FOUND A compound that potently inhibits a novel target protein in the malaria parasite, including forms of the parasite resistant to the classic antimalarial drug chloroquine. The compound could portend a new class of agents to fight malaria. Malaria, an infection caused by the protozoan Plasmodium falciparum and transmitted by mosquitoes, causes high fever, body aches, and often death, particularly among children. Despite decades of effort to eradicate the disease, it still kills more than 1 million people per year, mostly in Africa. Current medications can't adequately address the problems posed by malaria worldwide, and new treatments that are more effective, cheaper, and easier to distribute are urgently needed. One problem is that few targets for antimalarial drugs are known. Now, pharmacology professor Jun O. Liu of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and coworkers have identified a methionine aminopeptidase (MetAP) enzyme from P. falciparum as a new molecular target for mala...