New breakthrough in fight against malaria
Published: June 23, 2005
Humans’ red blood cells may have the ability to evolve and gain protection from malaria by using a mutant form of haemoglobin, according to research published today.
Scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Maryland in the United States found the mutant haemoglobin, called HbC, appeared to make a protein that made infected cells less “sticky” and less likely to form clumps in small blood vessels.
It is thought this may make it easier for the spleen, which is part of the body’s immune system, to clear them out of the blood stream.
A report in the journal Nature says: “Malaria continues to kill more than a million African children annually. [But] over thousands of years, evolutionary pressure has selected a variety of haemoglobin mutations that confer resistance to severe manifestations of the disease.”
The mechanisms by which resistance is found in populations in malaria areas has been unclear and this research goes a step closer to understanding how it works, although the authors of the report say more work was needed.
“Identification of the factors that modify [the different kinds of mutant haemoglobin] will improve our understanding of malaria-protective mechanisms,” the report’s authors say.
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