SCREENING ARTEMESIA EXTRACTS FOR ANTI-MALARIAL ACTIVITY

An estimated 300-500 million new cases of malaria are reported annually, resulting in up to 2.7 million deaths each year. As a result of the development of resistance to traditional anti-malaria compounds, such as artemisinin and chloroquine, by the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, a worldwide effort in the search for a new novel anti-malarial compound is under way. Working with Dr. Dixson’s group, we explored the anti-malarial properties of four different species of plants belonging to the genus Artemisia. These plants are not only sisters to the plant that artemisinin was derived from, but are also found in western South Dakota. Anti-malarial activity was confirmed in six out of 12 crude extracts in a morphological assay. Because this assay was tedious, time consuming, and subjective, we have recently transitioned to a 96 well micro-titer plate-based biochemical assay. The findings from the morphological assay were confirmed in the biochemical assay, with complete inhibition at lower than therapeutic doses in two extracts. These results indicate that the extracts potentially contain compounds that differ from artemisinin and perhaps are more potent. Future work will focus on the purification and structural determination of active compounds.