Mechanisms of Drug Resistance in Plasmodium falciparum

摘要

Malaria continues as a major health threat throughout the tropical world andpotential demand for antimalarials is higher than for any other medication yet the world faces a crisis--drug resistance is emerging and spreading faster than drugs are being developed and the flow in the pipeline of new drugs has all but stopped. This represents a particular threat to the US Military. In a short time there may be parts of the world where no effective antimalarial drug is available. The recent emergence of multidrug resistant malaria parasites has intensified this problem. The goal of this work is to use a molecular genetic approach in the investigation of mechanisms of drug resistance and subsequently to use this information in the identification and development of new antimalarial drugs. These studies were initiated based on the observation that one mechanism of drug resistance in P. falciparum may be similar to multidrug resistance in cancer. During this work, we identified and fully characterized two mdr-like genes in P. falciparum, pfmdrl and pfmdr2 and have found an association with the amplification and over expression of one of these genes, pfmdrl with mefloquine resistance and multidrug resistant parasites both in laboratory derived and field isolated strains of Plasmodium falciparum. As a next step in this work, we have initiated the development methods of functional analysis which are critical both to developing and testing new chemotherapeutic interventions. Malaria, Drug resistance, Recombinant DNA, Tropical disease, Infectious disease.