Scientists reveal the mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine of antimalarial To develop new antimalarial drugs 
 
 
Glorifying the May 21, 2015 
 
 
Source: xinhua 

    Xinhuanet Washington, May 20 (reporter Lin Xiaochun), an international team of 20, said they have cracked the antimalarial mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine's, on this basis to develop safe and effective of a new generation of antimalarial drugs.
 
    The results, published in the new issue of the journal science translational medicine in the United States. Dichroa is Chinese traditional medicine, saxifrage families dichroa root plant used in the treatment of malaria in China can be traced back to 2000 years ago, but the bigger toxicity, limited clinical application.
 
    Is responsible for the research of Ralph mackey, assistant professor of Harvard University, told xinhua, dichroa is probably the most ancient antimalarial drugs, based on dichroa alkali development of synthetic compounds such as active ingredient dichroa dichroa ketone of antimalarial effect is just as good as artemisinin, but people do not know their action principle, also don't know how to reduce the side effects of it, limit of its further utilization.
 
    For this purpose, the research team, led by mackey chuck and analyses the influence of two kinds of dichroa alkali has a high resistance of the malaria parasite genome sequence, the results show that these two kinds of parasite, the only variation is a common coding preserved ammonia acyl tRNA synthetase gene. Further research shows that the synthetase is dichroa alkali drug target, is the key to dichroa alkali containing the parasite infection.
 
    The researchers developed a compound called halofuginol, and use it in the treatment of mice infected with malaria. Results showed that the compound has effectively reduce parasite infection, treatment of mice with no severe side effects.
 
    "It has been proved that can develop better tolerated dichroa alkali analogs." Mackey chuck said: "if all goes well, we expect a 5 to 10 years there will be a kind of drugs in clinical applications."
 
    Malaria is an acute infectious disease caused by parasites, spread by mosquito bites. The world more than 600000 people die each year from malaria, most of which are African children under the age of five. Now is the most effective antimalarial drugs, also in traditional Chinese medicine developed on the basis of artemisinin. But as a result of the malaria parasite in parts of southeast Asia have developed to artemisinin resistance, it is necessary to develop a new generation of antimalarial drugs as soon as possible.