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Scientists crack protein code of killer
parasite
Tuesday January 10, 2012 08:12:50 AM,
IANS
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Washington:
Researchers have cracked the protein code of a malaria parasite
that killed 655,000 people in 2010.
The protein is an enzyme that Plasmodium falciparum - the
protozoan that causes the most lethal form of malaria - uses to
make cell membrane.
The protozoan cannot survive without this enzyme, but even though
the enzyme has many lookalikes in other organisms, people do not
make it.
Together these characteristics make the enzyme an ideal target for
new antimalarial drugs.
Although five different species of Plasmodium can cause malaria,
Plasmodium falciparum causes the most severe disease.
The protein's structure might have remained an enigma, had it not
been the "unreasonable optimism" of Joseph Jez, associate
professor of biology at Washington, which carried his team through
a six-year-long obstacle course, full of failures and setbacks.
"What my lab does is crystallize proteins so that we can see what
they look like in three dimensions," Jez says. "The idea is that
if we know a protein's structure, it will be easier to design
chemicals that would target the protein's active site and shut it
down," Jez says.
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