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Malaria

Channelling nutrients

Nature volume 406, pages 949–951 (2000)Cite this article

Malaria, an infectious disease responsible for an estimated 300 million to 500 million clinical cases and 1.5 million to 2.7 million human deaths each year1, is caused by a single-celled parasite that invades the red blood cells of its host. In the 48 hours after it invades a red blood cell, the parasite grows to many times its original size, and then divides to produce 20–30 new parasites. To fuel this high rate of growth and multiplication, the malaria parasite needs nutrients from outside the infected cell. However, a normal red blood cell is unable to take up at least some nutrients fast enough to satisfy the parasite's voracious appetite. On page 1001 of this issue2, Desai and colleagues provide new insights into how this problem is solved. They describe a versatile channel that is found in the outer membrane of infected (but not uninfected) red blood cells, and which helps to supply nutrients to the hungry parasite.

It has long been known that following the invasion of a human red blood cell by Plasmodium falciparum — the most virulent of the four malaria parasites that are infectious to humans — the membrane of the infected cell undergoes a dramatic increase in its permeability to a range of small solutes, both charged and uncharged3,4,5,6. The pathways responsible for the increased permeability have previously been shown to have a strong preference for negatively charged ions (anions) over positively charged ions (cations), and to be blocked by drugs known to inhibit anion-selective channels6 (pore-forming proteins that provide anion-selective pathways across cell membranes). This led to the proposal6 that the increased permeability is the result of the parasite activating or inserting an anion-selective channel in the membrane of the red blood cell.

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  1. Division of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science, Australian National University, Canberra, 0200, Australia

    Kiaran Kirk

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  1. Kiaran Kirk
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Correspondence to Kiaran Kirk.

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Kirk, K. Channelling nutrients. Nature 406, 949–951 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35023209

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