Last Updated: 17/11/2024
Study on the mechanism of action of artemisinin against Plasmodium
Objectives
This project aims to use malaria parasites (including human malaria parasites and rodent malaria parasites) as the platform, combining chemical inhibition, liposome delivery and especially transgenic and gene targeting techniques, to study the roles of several key candidates, i.e., heme, mitochondria including the respiration chain, and superoxide dismutase in the antimalarial action of artemisinin.
The discovery of artemisinin or qinghaosu constitutes an enormous contribution to the world health from Chinese medical field. The biological action of artemisinin is very unique. Its mechanism has long been a mystery and has become a worldwide scientific problem. Solving this question probably carries further implications to science in China. Since 15 years ago the applicant lab (or“we”) have adopted a model organism yeast (S. cerevisiae) approach to explore the cellular action properties of artemisinin, and made several important findings. These results led the researchers to propose for the first time in the world a novel anti-mitochondrial mode of action for artemisinin. This model has been widely cited in the literature. However, the theory has also much limitation in that yeast and malaria parasites differ dramatically in physiology. How to translate yeast and other findings to malaria studies is becoming an eminent question. The results are expected to have important revelations to the deciphering of the biological actions of artemisinin.
Jan 2018 — Dec 2018
$22,674
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