Abstract
Malaria is a common and life-threatening disease endemic in large parts of the world. The emergence of antimalarial drug resistance is threatening disease-control measures that depend heavily on treatment of clinical malaria. The intracellular malaria parasite is particularly vulnerable during its brief extracellular stage of the life cycle. Wilson et al. describe a screen targeting these extracellular parasite stages and make the surprising discovery that clinically used macrolide antibiotics are potent inhibitors of parasite invasion into erythrocytes.See research article: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/13/52
Highlights
Malaria is a common and life-threatening disease endemic in large parts of the world
600,000 deaths per year from a peak of nearly 1.1 million deaths per year [1], a 45 % decrease attributed to the use of bed nets and to the antimalarial drug artemisinin [1]
Regardless of mechanism, to preserve the gains against clinical malaria in the face of the parasite’s remarkable ability to develop drug resistance it is essential that we keep step with a deep portfolio of new drugs ready to take over when inevitable resistance breaks through
Summary
Malaria is a common and life-threatening disease endemic in large parts of the world. Another mainstay of malaria control are antimalarials that treat clinical disease and are used in preventative or targeted mass drug administration for specific populations. While clearly associated with the mechanism of resistance, this protein is likely not the direct molecular target of the drug.
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