New malaria therapies ‘could target essential calcium enzyme’

New research has highlighted a potential new method of inhibiting a specific calcium-regulated enzyme in order to treat malaria.

The US team, led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania,  has developed a unique approach to targeting calpain, an enzyme that is essential to many cellular processes but can cause severe problems when overactivated.

Normally, this enzyme can ease the ability for the Plasmodium falciparum parasite that causes malaria to exit its host cell and infect other parts of the body, but this process can be shut down by mimicking a natural reaction with a synthesised molecule, it was found.

This is important, as calpain has also been implicated as a factor in muscular dystrophy, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis and cancer.

Study leader Dr Doron Greenbaum, assistant professor of pharmacology at the university, said: "The next step is to show how this concept can be generalised to multiple classes of proteases, many of which are pharmaceutically of great interest. It's not a single-hit wonder."

Malaria is considered a major health issue in poorer countries, causing an estimated 660,000 deaths worldwide in 2010, according to the World Health Organization.