Using a technique called electron microscopy, a group of researchers from Germany and the UK studied how the enzymes of in the malaria parasite Plasmodium synthesises Vitamin B6. The findings have been published in the online journal Structure.
Malaria is one of those buzzword diseases, famous for being extremely dangerous. It is one of the most devastating infectious diseases in the world, killing over a million people every year. It also newly infects a shocking 250 million individuals per year. Many of those people are infected when they are bitten by mosquitoes carrying the Plasmodium parasite.
It is hoped that learning more about the vitamins will be able to help in the battle against the disease. Vitamin B6 had already been set out as a potential target for new drugs. And new drugs are now becoming extremely important as the Plasmodium species are becoming very resistant to current drugs.
The biochemical process of making vitamin B6 is complicated and highly organised. It involves an enzyme complex of 24 protein subunits. The researchers used electron microscopy to look at the 3D crystal structure of the assembly from individual proteins.
The researchers suggested that the data serves as a good starting point for developing specific inhibitors that could target active enzyme sites, which would allow new treatments to be created.