Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 8, 2025

Author Spotlight: Identifying Compensatory Pathways in Malaria Parasites Containing Hypomorphic Allele of Essential Protein Kinases
Published on: November 22, 2024
Human peroxiredoxin 6 is essential for malaria parasites and provides a host-based drug target
Matthias Paulus Wagner1, Pauline Formaglio2, Olivier Gorgette3
1Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris, Malaria Parasite Biology and Vaccines Unit, Paris, France.
Abstract:
The uptake and digestion of host hemoglobin by malaria parasites during blood-stage growth leads to significant oxidative damage of membrane lipids. Repair of lipid peroxidation damage is crucial for parasite survival. Here, we demonstrate that Plasmodium falciparum imports a host antioxidant enzyme, peroxiredoxin 6 (PRDX6), during hemoglobin uptake from the red blood cell cytosol. PRDX6 is a lipid-peroxidation repair enzyme with phospholipase A2 (PLA2) activity. Inhibition of PRDX6 with a PLA2 inhibitor, Darapladib, increases lipid-peroxidation damage in the parasite and disrupts transport of hemoglobin-containing vesicles to the food vacuole, causing parasite death. Furthermore, inhibition of PRDX6 synergistically reduces the survival of artemisinin-resistant parasites following co-treatment of parasite cultures with artemisinin and Darapladib. Thus, PRDX6 is a host-derived drug target for development of antimalarial drugs that could help overcome artemisinin resistance.
Related Concept Videos
Oxidation of Phenols to Quinones
o-hydroxy phenols are oxidized to o-quinones and p-hydroxy phenols to p-quinones. Such redox reactions involve the transfer of two electrons and two protons. The reversible redox...
Protein Import into the Peroxisomes
Peroxisomal Protein Import:
Peroxisomes lack the genetic machinery required to code for their own proteins. Hence, most peroxisomal membrane, lumenal and transmembrane proteins are synthesized in the cytoplasm or ER and transported to the peroxisome...
The Electron Transport Chain
Inhibitors of the electron transport chain
Rotenone, a widely used pesticide, prevents electron transfer from Fe-S cluster to ubiquinone or Q...
Diversity of Protists II
Symbiosis
Electron Transport Chain: Complex III and IV

