WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - In a proof-of-concept study, researchers have found that a drug typically used to treat rare diseases could make human blood lethal to mosquitoes, potentially offering a new way to combat malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.
The drug, nitisinone, is usually prescribed for individuals with rare inherited conditions. It works by inhibiting the production of a specific protein, reducing toxic byproducts in the body. When mosquitoes fed on the blood of three patients already taking nitisinone for a genetic disorder, they died within 12 hours.
'One way to stop the spread of diseases transmitted by insects is to make the blood of animals and humans toxic to these blood-feeding insects,' said microbiologist Lee R. Haines from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
'Our findings suggest that using nitisinone could be a promising new complementary tool for controlling insect-borne diseases like malaria.'
To further investigate its effects, researchers tested nitisinone-laced blood on mosquitoes and used mathematical models to assess how different doses might affect human populations.
Their findings, published in Science Translational Medicine, revealed that nitisinone effectively kills mosquitoes across all age groups, including older ones that are more likely to carry malaria. Additionally, the drug was capable of eliminating insecticide-resistant mosquitoes.
Nitisinone blocks mosquitoes' crucial enzyme, preventing them from properly digesting blood and causing rapid death.
The researchers also compared its effectiveness to ivermectin, a drug already explored as a mosquito-killing agent. While ivermectin can kill mosquitoes at lower concentrations, nitisinone acts more quickly, often within a day, and remains in human blood longer, increasing the likelihood of exposure for mosquitoes.
'We thought that if we wanted to go down this route, nitisinone had to perform better than ivermectin,' said parasitologist Alvaro Acosta Serrano from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. 'Indeed, nitisinone performance was fantastic.'
'It has a much longer half-life in human blood than ivermectin, which means its mosquitocidal activity remains circulating in the human body for much longer. This is critical when applied in the field for safety and economical reasons.'
These findings suggest that nitisinone could be a promising new tool in the fight against malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.
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