SUBUN project: Engineering substrate-based inhibitors of Plasmodium SUB1, a potential target for Malaria treatment
The topic of my research is the development of peptidase inhibitors with potential interest in the treatment of Malaria. The egress of merozoites from infected host cells is such a pivotal step that strictly depends upon parasite proteases, including a novel highly promising target, the Plasmodium-specific subtilisin SUB1, for which no useful inhibitor has been discovered yet. SUB1 plays a key role in the egress from hepatocytes and erythrocytes, including for male gametes (involved in parasite’s transmission via the Anopheles vector), indicating that an inhibitor would have both prophylactic and therapeutic value and obey to most severe WHO’s criteria of future antimalarials, i.e. targeting all stages of parasite life cycle. The SUBUN project aims at identifying highly potent and selective SUB1 inhibitors, active against parasite growth in vitro and in vivo.
I will conduct my research at the Institut des Biomolécules Max Mousseron (IBMM) in Montpellier, in France under the supervision of Dr. Jean-François Hernandez (Peptide Team)!
This project has received fundingfrom the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 898512