Anti-malarial treatments that act on a new target have the potential to cure, prevent and block the transmission of the disease, U.S. researchers said.
The as-yet undeveloped treatments would target an enzyme essential for the growth and development of Plasmodium parasites, which carry malaria, Elizabeth Winzeler, University of California-San Diego, reported in the online edition of the science journal Nature Wednesday.
The new class of anti-malarials is called imidazopyrazines.
Winzeler said she and her colleagues identified an enzyme involved in fatty acid metabolism as a drug target that is involved in all of the parasite's life stages. This enzyme is inhibited by imidazopyrazines.
The researchers said they discovered that imidazopyrazines provide powerful preventive, healing and transmission-blocking activity in rodent malaria models and inhibit liver infection in simian malarial parasite species.
They also reported that imidazopyrazines are active against blood-stage field isolates of two major human malarial parasite species.
The authors said their results may help lay the foundation for development of new anti-malarial drugs.
