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Prized malaria drug target nailed

The structure of Plasmodium falciparum dihydrofolate reductase–thymidylate synthase, a target of clinically established antimalarial drugs, reveals the nature of inhibitor binding, drug resistance and autologous gene repression, all of which influence species-specific drug sensitivity.

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Figure 1: Host-parasite differences are more pronounced in the P. falciparum DHFR active site than the TS site.
Figure 2: Parasite-specific insertions in the P. falciparum DHFR-TS structure.

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Correspondence to Pradipsinh K. Rathod.

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Rathod, P., Phillips, M. Prized malaria drug target nailed. Nat Struct Mol Biol 10, 316–318 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsb0503-316

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