Scientists have found a way to boost the efficacy of the world's most powerful antimalarial drug with the help of chemotherapy medicines. Scientists from the University of Melbourne and the Japanese pharmaceutical company Takeda have discovered that antimalarial drug artemisinin works through a "double whammy" attack on the deadly parasite.
The drug damages proteins in malaria parasites and clogs the parasite's waste disposal system, known as the proteasome.
Researcher Leann Tilley, University of Melbourne said: "The double whammy effect means that combining artemisinin with an anti-cancer drug that also targets the proteasome, complements the activity of artemisinin, and can restore activity against artemisinin-resistant parasites."
"The parasite's proteasome is like a shredder that chews up damaged or used-up proteins," Professor Tilley said. "Treating malaria parasites with artemisinin generates a lot of damaged proteins. Artemisinin and proteasome inhibitors thus can work together to jam the recycling system."
Blockage of the proteasome causes an accumulation of proteins that are marked with a "kiss of death" modification. When these damaged proteins build up, they stress the parasite and soon lead to cell death.
The team are working to identify parasite-specific proteasome inhibitors that could be advanced to clinical trials.
"At Takeda, we are proud to contribute our expertise to help address critical global health problems. In this case, we were able to leverage our oncology research on the proteasome system and uncover a potential new way to treat malaria," said Larry Dick, Director, Biochemistry, Oncology at Takeda.
"We are currently undertaking medicinal chemistry work to create novel analogs of human proteasome inhibitors that specifically inhibit the parasite proteasome " Professor Tilley said. "We want a compound that can be administered orally and will last a long time in the bloodstream. If a suitable compound can be found, human trials could happen very soon."
We welcome researchers from different part of the to submit abstract on their latest research at our upcoming conference Cell Tissue Science 2019 which is mainly focuses on the complications the consequences of Stem Cell, Regenerative Medicine, Stem Cell Therapy, Cancer Cell Biology , Technical Advancements in cancer treatment and many more.We welcome you to the our upcoming conference “ 12th World Congress on Cell & Tissue Science” . For more info visit :Cell Tissue Science 2019