Early prediction of cerebral malaria by 1 H NMR based metabolomics

Background Cerebral malaria (CM) is a life-threatening disease, caused mainly by Plasmodium falciparum in humans. In adults only 1–2 % of P. falciparum-infected hosts transit to the cerebral form of the disease while most exhibit non-cerebral malaria (NCM). The perturbed metabolic pathways of CM and NCM have been reported. Early marker(s) of CM is(are) not known and by the time a patient exhibits the pathological symptoms of CM, the disease has progressed. Murine CM, like the human disease, is difficult to assign to specific animals at early stage and hence the challenge to treat CM at pre-clinical stage of the disease. This is the first report of prediction of CM in mice using a novel strategy based on 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomics.