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A paper in Nature shows that herbicides can attack the parasite that causes the tropical disease toxoplasmosis. Kerri Smith explores the history of wielding weedkiller against human disease.
What’s toxoplasmosis?
It’s a common infection caused by a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii , related to the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum . More than a quarter of the world’s population are infected with Toxoplasma , but it only causes disease if a person’s immune system is compromised. In mice and rats, its effects are somewhat different — the parasite extinguishes a mouse or rat’s fear of cats, which, by leading them to a feline end, gets the parasite into a new host.
What’s the new paper about?
The same substance that controls seed germination in plants has been found to govern how Toxoplasma gondii spreads from one cell to the next. The hormone, called abscisic acid (ABA), has previously been found only in plants and some simple sea creatures such as sponges.
This plant-like trait can be exploited to defeat the parasite: certain herbicides kill Toxoplasma . And because humans lack this chemical pathway, the treatments should have no side effects.
Has weedkiller been effective on parasites before?
Yes. In 1998, opthalmologist Rima McLeod of the University of Chicago Medical Center and her colleagues found that the herbicide glyphosate slowed the growth of the malaria and toxoplasmosis parasites. And in 2002, a team from the University of Tübingen in Germany and Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon, published a report of a successful trial of fosmidomycin, already in use as a herbicide and antibiotic, as a treatment for malaria
1. weedkiller 除草劑
2. whack 戰勝
3. parasite 寄生蟲
4. herbicide 除草劑
5. toxoplasmosis 住血原蟲病
6. wield 使用(工具)
7. gondii 弓漿蟲
8. malaria 虐疾
9. Plasmodium 虐原蟲
10. compromise 放棄
11. extinguish 使消失
12. feline 貓科
13. germination 發芽
14. hormone 荷爾蒙
15. sponge 海棉
16. trait 特色
17. exploit 利用
18. opthalmologist 眼科學者
19. glyphosate 一種除草劑
20. antibiotic 抗生素
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