International Journal for Parasitology: Drugs and Drug Resistance (Apr 2024)

Absence of association between Pfnfs1 mutation and in vitro susceptibility to lumefantrine in Plasmodium falciparum

  • Weilin Zeng,
  • Wei Zhao,
  • Hao Wei,
  • Yucheng Qin,
  • Zheng Xiang,
  • Yanrui Wu,
  • Xi Chen,
  • Yanmei Zhang,
  • Hui Zhao,
  • Mengxi Duan,
  • Wenya Zhu,
  • Kemin Sun,
  • Yiman Wu,
  • Tao Liang,
  • Ye Mou,
  • Cheng Liu,
  • Xiuya Tang,
  • Yaming Huang,
  • Liwang Cui,
  • Zhaoqing Yang

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 24
p. 100532

Abstract

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Artemether-lumefantrine (AL) is the most widely used antimalarial drug for treating uncomplicated falciparum malaria. This study evaluated whether the K65Q mutation in the Plasmodium falciparum cysteine desulfurase IscS (Pfnfs1) gene was associated with alternated susceptibility to lumefantrine using clinical parasite samples from Ghana and the China-Myanmar border area. Parasite isolates from the China-Myanmar border had significantly higher IC50 values to lumefantrine than parasites from Ghana. In addition, the K65 allele was significantly more prevalent in the Ghanaian parasites (34.5%) than in the China-Myanmar border samples (6.8%). However, no difference was observed in the lumefantrine IC50 value between the Pfnfs1 reference K65 allele and the non reference 65Q allele in parasites from the two regions. These data suggest that the Pfnfs1 K65Q mutation may not be a reliable marker for reduced susceptibility to lumefantrine.

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