Using yeast synthetic lethality to inform drug combination for Malaria

Combinatorial chemotherapy is necessary for the treatment of malaria. However, finding a suitable partner drug for a new candidate is challenging. Here we develop an algorithm that identifies all of the gene pairs of; Plasmodium falciparum; that possess orthologues in yeast that have a synthetic lethal interaction but are absent in humans. This suggests new options for drug combinations, particularly for inhibitors of targets such as; P. falciparum; calcineurin, cation ATPase 4, or phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase.