Unraveling the importance of the malaria parasite helicases

Abstract

Malaria is a human parasitic disease caused by infection from Plasmodium species, particularly Plasmodium falciparum. Each year millions of people are infected with malaria and large numbers of deaths result due to this deadly infection. P. falciparum contains 14 chromosomes, nearly 5400 genes and a multistage life cycle in humans and mosquitoes. The control of malaria is still a challenge as the parasite is continuously developing resistance to available antimalarial drugs and the mosquito vector is developing resistance to insecticides. The availability of P. falciparum genome has resulted in the identification of parasite-specific proteins that can be targeted without harmful effects to the human host. Toward this goal, we have been working on the identification and characterization of helicases in order to find parasite-specific helicases, which can be used as novel drug targets to tackle the rising problem of drug resistance. Helicases are ATP-dependent nucleic acid unwinding enzymes. The P. falciparum genome analysis depicts that it contains some parasite-specific helicases and homologs to most of the human helicases. Here, we present an overview of P. falciparum helicases and their importance in parasite growth and survival.

Keywords: Plasmodium falciparum; ATPase; DEAD-box; DEAH-box; RecQ; RuvB; UvrD; helicase; inhibitors; malaria parasite.