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Triclosan is minimally effective in rodent malaria models

Nature Medicine volume 17, pages 33–34 (2011)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

The discovery several years ago that Plasmodium parasites use a fatty acid synthesis type II pathway (FAS-II), shared by plants and bacteria, raised hopes for the discovery of new antimalarial targets1 and stimulated the search for FAS-II inhibitors. This pathway is harbored in the Plasmodium apicoplast, a nonphotosynthetic plastid of cyanobacterial origin, and is composed of four enzymes. The rate-limiting step is mediated by enoyl acyl carrier protein reductase (FabI)2. In mammals, all four enzymatic steps reside in the single multifunctional fatty acid synthesis type I (FAS-I) protein.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oral Surgery, Oral Radiology and Oral Medicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Werner Baschong

  2. BASF Schweiz AG, Basel, Switzerland

    Werner Baschong

  3. Department of Medical Parasitology and Infection Biology, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland

    Sergio Wittlin & Reto Brun

  4. Division of Biological Chemistry & Drug Discovery, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK

    Kirstine A Inglis & Alan H Fairlamb

  5. Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, England, UK

    Simon L Croft

  6. Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA

    T R Santha Kumar & David A Fidock

  7. Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA

    David A Fidock

Authors
  1. Werner Baschong
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  2. Sergio Wittlin
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  3. Kirstine A Inglis
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  4. Alan H Fairlamb
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  5. Simon L Croft
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  6. T R Santha Kumar
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  7. David A Fidock
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  8. Reto Brun
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Reto Brun.

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Baschong, W., Wittlin, S., Inglis, K. et al. Triclosan is minimally effective in rodent malaria models. Nat Med 17, 33–34 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0111-33

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