Malaria: a bacterium found in the intestines of mosquitoes offers hope
A team of researchers has identified a bacterium that produces a toxin capable of stopping the development of the Plasmodium falciparum parasite in mosquitoes.
2021, malaria killed 619,000 people, most of them on the African continent. New prospects for effectively combating this mosquito-borne disease are therefore giving rise to high hopes. A multinational team of researchers from the Johns-Hopkins-Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and the British pharmaceutical company GSK are the latest voices of optimism. The latter, reports Le Monde, have discovered a bacterial toxin capable of stopping the development of the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, responsible for malaria.
It is the Delftia tsuruhatensis TC1 bacterium that is at the heart of all hopes. Contained in several plants as well as in the tissues and organs of certain mammals, it produces a toxin that inhibits the development of the Plasmodium falciparum parasite in the digestive tract of mosquitoes at an early stage, explain researchers in an article published on August 3 in the journal Science.
This toxin is able to penetrate mosquito tissue. A product based on Delftia tsuruhatensis TC1 could therefore be sprayed on surfaces such as mosquito nets. Promising trials have already been carried out in Burkina Faso.
"Real hope at a time when the fight against the disease is stagnating".
"This is a major discovery, one that could tip the balance towards eradication," enthuses Pierre Buffet, Medical Director of the Institut Pasteur. "We are now in the realm of biological control, which is raising real hopes at a time when the fight against the disease is stagnating.
However, notes Olivier Silvie, Director of Research at Inserm, "before considering large-scale use, this research must continue to determine whether the bacterium and toxin can have consequences for other organisms, such as pollinating insects, which would be catastrophic".
For the time being, the bacterium does not appear to present any danger to human health. To go further, researchers could consider genetically modifying it so that it is transmitted by the female mosquito to her offspring, making it effective in the longer term.