An insect virus by name baculovirus can eliminate liver-stage malarial parasites in mice, offering a new hope for discovering safer and effective alternate treatment options.
Baculovirus virion(BV) induced innate immunity completely eliminates the liver stage dormant hypnozoites of Plasmodium vivax in a mouse model. This can lead to the discovery of new and more effective drugs for treating malaria, according to researchers from Kanazawa University.// Malaria is caused by Plasmodium, a parasite spread by the Anopheles mosquito as it feasts on blood. The parasite is released into the bloodstream and travels to the liver to mature, before being released back into the bloodstream where it infects red blood cells.
‘Adding baculovirus to the existing antimalarials reduces the patient's need for taking several doses of drugs’
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Symptoms normally appear a few days or weeks later, but in the case of P. vivax, the parasites can also lay dormant in the liver with disease recurring months or even years later (known as hypnozoites). P. vivax is the most widely distributed human malaria parasite in the world (a major health risk to 2.85 billion people worldwide).Read More..
The active blood-borne form of P. vivax can be targeted with artemisinin, but only a single drug, primaquine, is available for the hypnozoites.
However, primaquine is associated with a high risk of life-threatening hemolytic anemia in people with glucose-6-phosphate-dehydrogenase enzyme deficiency.
In addition, even effective doses can cause several side effects including nausea and vomiting. "Malarial infection affects a large number of individuals each year, many of whom are young children aged under five." says first author Talha Bin Emran.
"Current treatments can have serious side effects for some individuals, hence safer radical curative drugs that efficiently kill the hypnozoites are urgently needed."
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The elimination of liver-stage parasites with BV was superior to that with primaquine. Additionally, they showed that the elimination effect occurred in a TLR9-independent manner. These effects were mainly mediated by a cytokine known as interferon alpha (IFN-α), which has previously been investigated as a treatment for several other diseases.
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"Currently P. vivax patients must receive several doses of antimalarials for treatment, therefore adding BV to existing drugs could reduce the risk of infection whilst receiving treatment." study corresponding author Shigeto Yoshida says.
"It could also provide protection against the disease in the liver. There are several challenges in the treatment of malaria, which we hope to overcome with our work." These results demonstrate the potential to develop new malaria drugs that kill P. vivax hypnozoites over an extended period and with reduced side effects.
Source-Eurekalert