1. Academic Validation
  2. Targeting Plasmodium PI(4)K to eliminate malaria

Targeting Plasmodium PI(4)K to eliminate malaria

  • Nature. 2013 Dec 12;504(7479):248-253. doi: 10.1038/nature12782.
Case W McNamara  # 1 Marcus Cs Lee  # 2 Chek Shik Lim 3 Siau Hoi Lim 3 Jason Roland 1 Oliver Simon 3 Bryan Ks Yeung 3 Arnab K Chatterjee 1 Susan L McCormack 1 Micah J Manary 4 Anne-Marie Zeeman 5 Koen J Dechering 6 Tr Santha Kumar 2 Philipp P Henrich 2 Kerstin Gagaring 1 Maureen Ibanez 1 Nobutaka Kato 1 Kelli L Kuhen 1 Christoph Fischli 7 Advait Nagle 1 Matthias Rottmann 7 8 David M Plouffe 1 Badry Bursulaya 1 Stephan Meister 4 Lucia Rameh 9 Joerg Trappe 10 Dorothea Haasen 10 Martijn Timmerman 6 Robert W Sauerwein 6 11 Rossarin Suwanarusk 12 Bruce Russell 12 13 Laurent Renia 12 Francois Nosten 14 15 David C Tully 1 Clemens Hm Kocken 5 Richard J Glynne 1 Christophe Bodenreider 3 David A Fidock 2 16 Thierry T Diagana 3 Elizabeth A Winzeler 1 4
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, San Diego, California 92121, USA.
  • 2 Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York 10032, USA.
  • 3 Novartis Institutes for Tropical Disease, 138670 Singapore.
  • 4 Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA.
  • 5 Department of Parasitology, Biomedical Primate Research Centre, Rijswijk, The Netherlands.
  • 6 TropIQ Health Sciences, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
  • 7 Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland.
  • 8 University of Basel, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland.
  • 9 Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA.
  • 10 Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland.
  • 11 Department of Medical Microbiology, Radboud University, Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
  • 12 Laboratory of Malaria Immunobiology, Singapore Immunology Network, Agency for Science Technology and Research (ASTAR), Biopolis, Singapore.
  • 13 Department of Microbiology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, National University Health System, Singapore.
  • 14 Centre for Tropical Medicine, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
  • 15 Shoklo Malaria Research Unit, Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Mae Sot, Thailand.
  • 16 Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York 10032, USA.
  • # Contributed equally.
Abstract

Achieving the goal of malaria elimination will depend on targeting Plasmodium pathways essential across all life stages. Here we identify a lipid kinase, phosphatidylinositol-4-OH kinase (PI(4)K), as the target of imidazopyrazines, a new antimalarial compound class that inhibits the intracellular development of multiple Plasmodium species at each stage of Infection in the vertebrate host. Imidazopyrazines demonstrate potent preventive, therapeutic, and transmission-blocking activity in rodent malaria models, are active against blood-stage field isolates of the major human pathogens P. falciparum and P. vivax, and inhibit liver-stage hypnozoites in the simian Parasite P. cynomolgi. We show that imidazopyrazines exert their effect through inhibitory interaction with the ATP-binding pocket of PI(4)K, altering the intracellular distribution of phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate. Collectively, our data define PI(4)K as a key Plasmodium vulnerability, opening up new avenues of target-based discovery to identify drugs with an ideal activity profile for the prevention, treatment and elimination of malaria.

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