Drug Docking

These beautiful rainbow squiggles, twirls and dots represent the precise three-dimensional structure of the malaria parasite’s ribosome – a critical component of its protein synthesis machinery. And the tiny pink blob (resembling a piece of discreetly discarded chewing gum) is a molecule of the antimalarial drug mefloquine. The drug is a frontline treatment for malaria, yet its mechanism of action was largely unknown. Having solved the atomic structure of the ribosome with the bound drug, scientists were able to observe, for the first time, the drug’s exact interaction site and could thus figure out how it inhibits protein synthesis to kill the parasite. Importantly, this structural map should enable researchers to create improved versions of mefloquine with more potent activity, fewer side effects and with less chance of the parasite developing resistance – a current problem associated with the use of this important drug.

Written by Ruth Williams

Ruth Williams

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Ruth is a freelance science journalist based in the US. She's a regular correspondent for The Scientist, and her work has appeared in The Lancet, Nature, Scientific American Mind, BBC Focus and elsewhere. Twitter @rooph

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• Image from work by Wilson Wong and colleagues
• Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
• Image copyright held by original authors
• Research published in Nature Microbiology, March 2017