Researchers have uncovered a possible target for anti-malarial therapies by suppressing gene expression in blood stem cells.
Malaria-causing parasites attack mature red blood cells, which lack DNA, making it hard to test which genes make the cells vulnerable to malaria infection. Manoj Duraisingh at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, and his colleagues have sidestepped this problem by studying the stem cells that develop into red blood cells and contain DNA.
They used RNA molecules to knock down gene activity in the stem cells, induced them to develop into red blood cells and then exposed them to Plasmodium falciparum — the most deadly malaria pathogen.
They found that the parasite binds to a cell-surface protein called CD55 and could not infect cells that did not produce it. Red blood cells can function normally without CD55, suggesting that the protein could be a therapeutic target.
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Silenced gene keeps malaria out. Nature 521, 129 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/521129c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/521129c
