ArticleeLife2015
Deconvoluting heme biosynthesis to target blood-stage malaria parasites.
Article in eLife, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- PfATG18 links V-ATPase assembly to endocytic membrane dynamics in malaria parasites.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- Evolutionary Rate Covariation Across Malaria Parasite Species Enables Inference of Protein Interactions.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- A role for the poly-asparagine repeat in the Plasmodium histone acetyltransferase, PfGCN5.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Identification of a Putative Metal Transporter in the Apicoplast of Malaria Parasites.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Russian Dolls of Heme Metabolism in Malaria-Infected Red Blood Cells: Nested Vulnerabilities and Therapeutic Opportunities.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- 5-ALA does not potentiate dihydroartemisinin against Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasites.EMBO molecular medicine · 2026Article
- Acyl Carrier Protein is Essential for Apicoplast Biogenesis in Malaria Parasites Independent of Fatty Acid Synthesis.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Heme as activator and target for artemisinin: Towards multiple pharmacological bioactivity.Biochemistry and biophysics reports · 2026Review
- Evolutionary rate covariation across malaria parasite species enables inference of protein interactions.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Targeting Infected Host Cell Heme Metabolism to Kill Malaria Parasites.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Heme oxygenase-1 and malaria pathogenesis.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Chemical propulsion of hemozoin crystal motion in malaria parasites.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Kaposi's Sarcoma: A Non-Communicable Outcome Mainly Prompted by Communicable Diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Heme and immunity: The heme oxygenase dichotomy.Journal of inorganic biochemistry · 2025Review
- Biogenesis of CytochromesACS infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Dissecting apicoplast functions through continuous cultivation of Toxoplasma gondii devoid of the organelle.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Targeting Malaria's Achilles' Heels: A Review of Plasmodium Life Cycle Vulnerabilities for Drug Discovery.Current topics in medicinal chemistry · 2025Review
- Malaria parasites require a divergent heme oxygenase for apicoplast gene expression and biogenesis.eLife · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Heme metabolism is central to blood-stage infection by the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Parasites retain a heme biosynthesis pathway but do not require its activity during infection of heme-rich erythrocytes, where they can scavenge host heme to meet metabolic needs. Nevertheless, heme biosynthesis in parasite-infected erythrocytes can be potently stimulated by exogenous 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA), resulting in accumulation of the phototoxic intermediate protoporphyrin IX (PPIX). Here we use photodynamic imaging, mass spectrometry, parasite gene disruption, and chemical probes to reveal that vestigial host enzymes in the cytoplasm of Plasmodium-infected erythrocytes contribute to ALA-stimulated heme biosynthesis and that ALA uptake depends on parasite-established permeability pathways. We show that PPIX accumulation in infected erythrocytes can be harnessed for antimalarial chemotherapy using luminol-based chemiluminescence and combinatorial stimulation by low-dose artemisinin to photoactivate PPIX to produce cytotoxic reactive oxygen. This photodynamic strategy has the advantage of exploiting host enzymes refractory to resistance-conferring mutations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.