Researchers Discover How Actin Prevents Malaria

Collaborative research led by the Burnet Institute in Australia has used genome sequencing and genetic engineering to explain how a specially selected compound can prevent malaria from invading red blood cells.

The study results, published in the journal PLOS Biology on World Malaria Day on April 25, 2023, provide new opportunities and targets for the development of much-needed new medications for malaria, which has caused more than 619,000 deaths globally in 2021, according to the World Health Organization. The compound, a specific inhibitor of red blood cell invasion, has been identified in a previous study. The research team now used reverse genetics to discover how the drug attaches to actin, a protein that malaria uses to break into red blood cells, where it grows and reproduces, causing illness.

“We showed that this compound affects parasite actin in such a way that it prevents it from exerting this force, this biomechanical force, thereby stopping the parasites from entering the red blood cell,” said the study lead author, Dr. Madeline Dans, a postdoctoral researcher at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

For more details, read the news article on the Burnet Institute website.