Sci Transl Med：用新的抗炎症药物来对付脑部疟疾

5月23日，国际著名杂志Science Translational Medicine在线刊登了国外研究人员的最新研究成果“Effective Adjunctive Therapy by an Innate Defense Regulatory Peptide in a Preclinical Model of Severe Malaria，”，文章中，研究者用新的抗炎症药物来对付脑部疟疾。

这项在小鼠中的新的研究报告，一种新类别的药物可减轻与脑部疟疾感染有关的威胁生命的炎症。疟疾的最严重的形式与脑部炎症有关。这一水肿实际上是身体抵御感染的方式，但不幸的是它结果却造成了对人自身组织的附带损伤。Ariel Achtman及其同事证明，将一种常规的攻击疟原虫的药物与一种IDR肽药物结合可防止罹患某种实验形式脑型疟的小鼠的脑部炎症。

用IDR肽作为抗虐药的道路还在铺设当中——本研究中所用的特定的肽IDR-1018目前是兽医用来治疗大型动物感染的。尽管如此，该小组的脑型虐小鼠模型可能有助于防止有时在临床试验中测试新型抗疟药时会出现的失败的情况。（生物谷Bioon.com）

doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.3003515
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Effective Adjunctive Therapy by an Innate Defense Regulatory Peptide in a Preclinical Model of Severe Malaria

Ariel H. Achtman1,2,*, Sandra Pilat1,2,*, Charity W. Law1,2, David J. Lynn3,4,5, Laure Janot3, Matt L. Mayer3, Shuhua Ma3, Jason Kindrachuk3, B. Brett Finlay6, Fiona S. L. Brinkman4, Gordon K. Smyth1,7, Robert E. W. Hancock3 and Louis Schofield1,2,†

Case fatality rates for severe malaria remain high even in the best clinical settings because antimalarial drugs act against the parasite without alleviating life-threatening inflammation. We assessed the potential for host-directed therapy of severe malaria of a new class of anti-inflammatory drugs, the innate defense regulator (IDR) peptides, based on host defense peptides. The Plasmodium berghei ANKA model of experimental cerebral malaria was adapted to use as a preclinical screen by combining late-stage intervention in established infections with advanced bioinformatic analysis of early transcriptional changes in co-regulated gene sets. Coadministration of IDR-1018 with standard first-line antimalarials increased survival of infected mice while down-regulating key inflammatory networks associated with fatality. Thus, IDR peptides provided host-directed adjunctive therapy for severe disease in combination with antimalarial treatment.