Israeli researchers say they have discovered how malaria parasites trick their way into surviving in the human body, opening up hopes for new therapies that can battle the deadly disease.

Spread by mosquitoes, malaria is estimated to affect 1,000 children a day and kill 500,000 per year, largely in South America and sub-Saharan Africa.

In ground-breaking research published in the journal Cell Reports earlier this year, the team from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot found that malaria parasites send packages of their own messenger RNA to hack into a cell’s nucleus and hijack its splicing activity to shut down any immune response before it gets started.

The key to the study, which was among several set projects back by an Iranian missile attack in June that destroyed several labs connected to the Biomolecular Sciences Department, was the identification of the parasitic RNA inside the cell’s inner sanctum, where it had no business being.

“Nobody detected this low level of the parasite’s messenger RNA (mRNA) in the nucleus of immune cells using a microscope before,” Prof. Neta Regev-Rudzki, one of the lead researchers, told The Times of Israel. “It was completely new.”

The findings point to a potential new target for antimalarial drugs, said Regev-Rudzki, specifically therapies designed to prevent malarial RNAs from taking over the host’s splicing system.

Amy Buck, a University of Edinburgh professor of RNA & Infection Biology, said the research could have applications beyond malaria as well. She was not involved in the study.

“It is exciting not only because it offers new insights into how malaria can evade host immunity,” Buck said, adding that it “expands the context for how and where imported RNAs can function, with potential relevance to many other human diseases.”

Mission against malaria

Malaria is caused by parasites carried by female mosquitoes that pick up the parasite by biting someone who already has the disease.

Worldwide, millions of people are infected with malaria each year. Most cases are in sub-Saharan Africa and South America. More than 500,000 people die each year from the disease, though antimalarial drugs can treat the malady, especially if caught before complications begin. However, those drugs lose their efficacy as the parasites build resistance.

“We have to somehow find the way to block this disease and all this........

© The Times of Israel