Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Protein structure reveals how a malaria parasite imports a wide range of sugars

Unlike many sugar-transporting proteins, a transporter in one species of malaria parasite can import several types of sugar equally effectively, aiding the parasite’s survival. The structure of this protein reveals the reason for its versatility.
  1. Thorsten Althoff

    1. Thorsten Althoff is in the Department of Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  2. Jeff Abramson

    1. Jeff Abramson are in the Department of Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Most cases of malaria are caused by the protozoan parasite Plasmodium falciparum1. Given that there are more than 400,000 malaria-associated deaths annually, and that P. falciparum is constantly evolving to resist pharmacological therapies, opportunities for developing drugs that target this organism must be continuously explored. A protein called the P. falciparum hexose transporter 1 (PfHT1) has a proclivity for scavenging sugars from an infected host’s red blood cells to improve the parasite’s chances of survival in these cells, and is therefore a drug target. Writing in Nature, Qureshi et al.2 describe the 3D structure of PfHT1, and identify a mechanism that couples the docking of a sugar in the PfHT1 binding site to the process by which sugars are gated through the protein. This coupling facilitates the protein’s substrate promiscuity — that is, its ability to transport a wide range of sugar molecules effectively, a feature that gives the parasite a distinct survival advantage.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 578, 220-221 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00148-8

References

  1. World Health Organization. World Malaria Report 2019 (2019).

  2. Qureshi, A. A. et al. Nature 578, 321–325 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Jardetzky, O. Nature 211, 969–970 (1966).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Roth, E. Jr Blood Cells 16, 453–466 (1990).

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Woodrow, C. J., Burchmore, J. R. & Krishna, S. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 97, 9931–9936 (2000).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Abramson, J. et al. Science 301, 610–615 (2003).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Huang, Y., Lemieux, M. J., Song, J., Auer, M. & Wang, D.-N. Science 301, 616–662 (2003).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Deng, D. et al. Nature 526, 391–396 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Nomura, N. et al. Nature 526, 397–401 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Deng, D. et al. Nature 510, 121–125 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Sun, L. et al. Nature 490, 361–366 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Quistgaard, E. M., Löw, C., Moberg, P., Trésaugues, L. & Nordlund, P. Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. 20, 766–768 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Wisedchaisri, G., Park, M.-S., Iadanza, M. G., Zheng, H. & Gonen, T. Nature Commun. 5, 4521 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links