New method could identify new antimalarial targets

A new method for large-scale screening of the malaria genome could identify pathogenic genes and provide drug developers with previously unexplored targets to investigate as antimalarial therapeutics. The Science study was led by researchers at the University of South Florida.

The group used a high throughput transposon mutagenesis system -- which can insert DNA base pairs at particular sites in DNA -- to mutate nearly all genes in the genome of the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Genes that could not be mutated by the transposon system suggested the genes may protected from acquiring mutations because they could be essential for P. falciparum replication and survival...