theadvocate.com.au/story/1303079/malaria-buckles-to-salt/?cs=7 … pinching
Natalie Spillman found that pumps dotting the parasite’s body were crucial for it to rid itself of salt. Photo: Domino Postiglione
MALARIA claims about 655,000 lives a year, but research suggests that salt alone could be enough to kill the deadly parasite.
Australian National University researchers have found that the microscopic parasite living in the red blood cells of an infected person can die within hours if it has a salt overdose.
Seeking as part of her PhD research to establish how the parasite controls its salt balance, Natalie Spillman found that pumps dotting the parasite's body were crucial for it to rid itself of salt.
That discovery coincided with a paper outlining a potential new antimalarial drug - which, fortuitously, targeted these salt pumps. But the drug developer was initially unaware of the precise role of the key protein played with salt regulation.
Advertisement
''We sent off an email asking for some samples and we have shown that, sure enough, it stops the salt pump working,'' physiologist Kiaran Kirk said. ''As soon as we added the drug, the parasite fills up with salt and dies.''
The findings have been published in Cell Host & Microbe.
Professor Kirk, Dr Spillman's former supervisor, said because the malaria parasite evolved at such a rapid rate, it quickly outsmarted anti-malarial drugs and built resistance.
He said this discovery could lead to a new class of antimalarial drugs that would take the parasite much longer to overcome. The drug that stops the salt pumps is now in clinical trials - the first drug with a new chemical structure in human trials for 20 years.
''This is like nothing that has been used before,'' Professor Kirk said.
The malaria parasite survives on the haemoglobin in red blood cells. It causes disease by making the red cells ''sticky'', causing them to lodge in brain capillaries or other organs. Symptoms include anaemia, fever, chills, nausea, flu-like illness and, in severe cases, coma.
Malaria is among the top diseases that kill humans. According to the World Health Organisation, about 3.3 billion people - half the world's population - are at risk of malaria. In 2010, about 655,000 people died of the disease.
No comments:
Post a Comment