Screening of desert plants of the middle east for antimalarials

疟疾是一种主要的传染病，估计每年夺去300万人的生命。疟原虫寄生虫和昆虫媒介的迅速发展的抗性构成了对公共健康的迅速增加的世界范围的威胁。最近发现的萜类化合物生物合成的非甲羟戊酸途径已被确定为抗疟靶点，因为疟原虫绝对依赖于该途径的酶，而该途径在人类中不存在。为了发现新的抗疟疾剂，以色列和巴勒斯坦合作伙伴将收集沙漠植物，并提取植物提取物。来自恶性疟原虫的非甲羟戊酸途径的酶将由德国小组在重组细菌菌株中表达，并将用于筛选植物提取物的抑制活性。将以纯的形式分离抑制化合物，并确定其结构。

Malaria is a major infectous disease claiming an estimated 3 million lifes per year. Rapidly progressing resistance of Plasmodium parasites and insect vectors constitute a rapidly increasing world wide threat to public health. The recently discovered non-mevalonate pathway of terpenoid biosynthesis has been established as an antimalarial target sice Plasmodium sp. are absolutely dependent on the enzymes of this pathway which are absent in humans. In order to discover novel antimalaria agents, desert plants will be collected and plant extracts will be prepard by the Israeli and Palestinian partners. Enzymes of the non-mevalonate pathway from Plasmodium falciparum will be expressed in recombinant bacterial strains by the German group and will be used to screen the plant extracts for inhibitory activity. Inhibitory compounds will be isolated in pure form, and their structures will be determined.