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Drug Fights African Sleeping Sickness

Posted on: Monday, 23 April 2007, 15:00 CDT

Swedish researchers have discovered a drug extensively tested against cancer might combat African sleeping sickness.

African sleeping sickness -- a disease marked by fever, headaches and sleepiness -- is caused by a parasite that's transmitted to humans through tsetse fly bites.

The parasite escapes destruction by the host immune system because it is surrounded with a coat of proteins that constantly change. But now scientists have found the parasite might have a weakness: It contains very low amounts of cytidine triphosphate, a molecule essential for cell survival.

Artur Fijolek and colleagues at Umea University have demonstrated a protein called cytidine triphosphate synthetase, which helps synthesize CTP, was inhibited by acivicin, an anti-cancer drug tested in humans and animals but now abandoned.

The researchers tested the action of the drug on mice infected with the trypanosome parasite and found the infection was suppressed for at least one month without serious side effects.

The finding raises hopes that acivicin might be effective in fighting African sleeping sickness.

The research is detailed in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Source: United Press International

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