It's not often that I'm amazed by scientific news, but this one genuinely surprised me. Imagine taking a pill and finding out that your blood has suddenly become lethal to mosquitoes. That's exactly what researchers atUniversity of Notre Dame they discovered by studying the nitisinone, a drug used to treat some rare genetic diseases.
When mosquitoes feed on the blood of patients taking this drug, they die quickly. A discovery that could revolutionize the fight against malaria, a disease that still kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. And the beauty is that this “superpower” had been before our eyes for years, hidden in a drug that we use for completely different purposes.
Nitisinone, the drug with a double life
Il nitisinone It was originally developed to treat rare genetic diseases such as alkaptonuria , tyrosinemia type 1, conditions in which the body fails to properly metabolize the amino acid tyrosineThe drug works by blocking a specific enzyme called 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD), preventing the accumulation of harmful by-products in the body.
What the researchers discovered is that this same mechanism becomes lethal for mosquitoes. When these insects suck blood containing nitisinone, the drug also blocks the HPPD enzyme in their bodies, preventing them from properly digesting the blood and causing their rapid death.
Superiority over ivermectin
Ivermectin is currently considered the gold standard in mosquito control, but it has several problems. It is toxic to the environment and, due to its overuse in treating people and animals with worm and parasite infections, resistance is developing.
Lee R. Haines e Alvaro Acosta Serrano, main authors of the study published in Science that I link here, compared the effectiveness of nitisinone with that of ivermectin. The results were surprising: nitisinone not only lasts longer in human blood, but it is also able to kill mosquitoes of all ages, including older ones that are more likely to transmit malaria.
One of the most interesting features of nitisinone is that it has a much longer half-life in human blood than ivermectin, which means that its mosquito-killing activity remains in the human body much longer. This is essential when applied in the field for safety and economic reasons.
Future implications
The implications of this discovery are enormous. Nitisinone could become a complementary weapon in the fight against malaria, especially in areas where ivermectin is losing its effectiveness. Furthermore, as a versatile compound that specifically targets blood-sucking insects, it represents an environmentally sustainable option.
A side benefit of expanding the use of nitisinone as a vector control tool could be increased production of the drug and lowered its price even for patients suffering from rare genetic diseases. A win-win situation rather rare in the pharmaceutical field.
The next step for the research team will be to conduct field studies to determine which doses of nitisinone are most effective against mosquitoes in real-world conditions. If the results match the lab results, we could be looking at a significant breakthrough in the fight against one of the world’s most devastating diseases.
