Mohanty Sujata, Saklani Shilpa, Mahajan Mukesh
Department of Biotechnology, Jaypee Institute of Information Technology University, NOIDA, India.
Indian J Med Res. 2009 May;129(5):520-4.
BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Resistance to anti-malarial drugs by the parasites is one of the major obstacles to malaria control. The primary objective of this work was to find specific nuclear-encoded-apicoplast-targeted genes that are conserved between two different human malaria parasite species, Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax to find a common drug/vaccine targets for both the species.
Using computational genomics, possible nuclear-encoded-apicoplast-targeted genes were identified in P. falciparum genome. With comparative genomic approaches, homologous genes were identified between the two different human malaria species, P. falciparum and P. vivax.
Of the total 545 reported nuclear-encoded-apicoplast-targeted genes in P. falciparum, we could narrow down to as less as five genes that were found to have highly conserved nucleotide stretches in P. vivax. However, two such genes were of importance, as the majority of the protein coding regions (exons) of these genes were found to be highly conserved between them.
INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION: This preliminary study shows that nuclear-encoded-apicoplast-targeted genes were conserved between the two human malaria parasites and these could be targeted for developing a common drug to cure both forms of malaria.
疟原虫对抗疟药物产生耐药性是疟疾防治的主要障碍之一。本研究的主要目的是寻找在两种不同的人类疟原虫物种——恶性疟原虫和间日疟原虫之间保守的特定核编码质体靶向基因，以找到这两种疟原虫的共同药物/疫苗靶点。
利用计算基因组学方法，在恶性疟原虫基因组中鉴定可能的核编码质体靶向基因。采用比较基因组学方法，在两种不同的人类疟原虫物种——恶性疟原虫和间日疟原虫之间鉴定同源基因。
在恶性疟原虫中报道的545个核编码质体靶向基因中，我们能够将范围缩小至仅5个基因，这些基因在间日疟原虫中具有高度保守的核苷酸序列。然而，其中两个基因尤为重要，因为这些基因的大多数蛋白质编码区（外显子）在它们之间被发现高度保守。
这项初步研究表明，核编码质体靶向基因在两种人类疟原虫之间是保守的，这些基因可作为开发治疗两种疟疾的通用药物的靶点。
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