A rare blood type, found only in parts of East Africa, can help the body fight malaria even better than our best vaccines.
Now, scientists think they’ve figured out how this is possible – and that’s not a defense we’ve considered before.
Malaria is caused by five species of mosquito-borne Plasmodium parasites, which claim the lives of half a million people worldwide, many of them children.
The disease works by infiltrating our red blood cells, using the ‘L blood K-and-key’ system. While much vaccine research focuses on changing the way our blood cells change or key hijacking, the tooth gene variant goes out just outside the door.
Sylvia Carrick, a geneticist at the KEMRI-Welcome Trust Research Program in Kenya, said, “The tooth variation actually slightly increases the surface tension of red blood cells.
“It’s like the parasite still has the key to the lock, but the door is too heavy to open it.”
The malaria vaccine we currently have, it provides only 35 percent protection against deadly forms of the disease. Drug developers know we can do better – because there are men who naturally do that.
In 2017, after combing through thousands of genomes in Kenya, scientists discovered a tooth blood variant, a genetic paradox related to human blood cells that is believed to provide incredible natural resistance to malaria.
In the coastal city of Kilifi, a single copy of the tooth gene is protected by up to 40 percent against all types of severe malaria. And when individuals inherited two copies, one from each parent, that resistance reached 74 percent.
It is almost identical to the sickle-cell symptom, which is famous for protection against malaria and a serious illness that can carry multiple copies.
Two copies of the tooth gene, however, do not appear to have any adverse effects on health; They will easily add more protection against malaria.
While analyzing blood samples from 42 healthy children in Kiliform, researchers have now examined how tooth red blood cells respond. Plasmodium falciparum, A terrible form of malaria.
A microscopic time-lapse video suggests that tooth red blood cells form a hard cell membrane to prevent the parasite from entering – a previously unknown defense.
We are not yet sure if this leads to stiffened membranes, but the authors think that by altering the expression of certain membrane proteins, the dentu gene variant pulls the cell like a drum, eventually stopping the infection and moving it into the blood.
Rather than imaging blood samples in fine resolution, the team found significantly more parasites trapped in lower surface red blood cells.
This will explain why P. Falciparum Prefers small red blood cells, which are generally less stressed.
Researchers also found that membranes had an effect on malaria infection in children with zero tooth gene copies.
If we could learn exactly how the tooth gene affects membrane strains, we would be able to provide a more protective against this deadly parasite, as well as create a vaccine that shuts down the K-key mechanism.
“The red cell membrane just needs a little more stress than normal to prevent malaria parasites from entering,” says Viola Introini, a biophysicist at Calebridge University. “
“Creating a drug that mimics this increased stress can be a simple but effective way to prevent or treat malaria.”
The study was published in Nature.
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