Malaria secrets revealed

DALLAS, July 6 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers have uncovered why some mosquitoes are resistant to malaria -- a finding that might help fight the disease in humans.

Scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas found that certain changes in the mosquito's immune system appear to protect the insect by preventing it from attaching to the parasite.

Humans contract malaria from the mosquito. The researchers suggest that, by understanding how some mosquitoes ward off the parasite, there may be a way to prevent mosquitoes from being infected and thereby prevent transfer of the disease to humans.

The researchers focused on TEP1, a protein in the mosquito's immune system. In a study appearing online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Texas team discovered that the genetic differences between mosquitoes that are resistant and those that are susceptible to the parasite mostly manifest in a region of the TEP1 protein dubbed "the warhead," the portion that grabs the malarial parasite.

"We have been trying to cure people of malaria for over a century," said Richard Baxter, a postdoctoral researcher in biochemistry and a research associate with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "Only recently have people started to think about curing mosquitoes of malaria."

Mosquitoes that are resistant to malaria would not transmit the disease further.