red blood cell

Antimalarial drugs that interfere with haem detoxification, or target other parasite-specific processes, have been effective in the treatment of malaria, but their use has been dogged by the development of resistance.

The current paper focuses on interactions between the Plasmodium parasite and its metabolically highly reduced host cell, the natural selection of numerous polymorphisms in the genes encoding hemoglobin and other erythrocyte proteins.