A new study has revealed that malaria drug resistance in Southeast Asia is caused by a single mutated gene in the disease-causing parasite.
The study found that a single mutated gene K13 inside the disease-causing Plasmodium falciparum parasite are frequently found in drug-resistant parasites in Southeast Asia.
David Fidock, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology and of medical sciences (in medicine) at Columbia University Medical Center, said that the bad news about our finding is that it shows that resistance can arise through single mutations in one gene and pop up anywhere, at any time.
He said that that's quite different from past instances with former first-line drugs, when complex sets of multiple mutations were required and resistance spread only as the mutated parasites spread.
The good news is that K13 mutations produce a relatively weak resistance. A related study published in the same issue of Science found that K13 mutations enable the parasite to hide in red blood cells in a developmental state that is naturally less vulnerable to artemisinin.
Dr. Fidock added that this allows them to temporarily survive treatment, but it will not be enough for ACTs to fail across Africa, particularly as the partner drugs continue to be highly effective, but it may be a foundation for parasites to evolve stronger degrees of resistance to these therapies, so we have to watch for increasing resistance very carefully.
The study was published in Science.
