Niemand, JandeliBirkholtz, Lyn-MarieLouw, Abraham IzakKirk, K.2011-05-232011-05-232010-10Niemand et al.: Polyamine uptake in the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, is dependent on the parasite’s membrane potential. Malaria Journal 2010 9(Suppl 2):P25. [http://www.malariajournal.com/]1475-287510.1186/1475-2875-9-S2-P25http://hdl.handle.net/2263/16605Polyamines are present at high levels in proliferating cells, including cancerous cells and protozoan parasites and the inhibition of their synthesis has been exploited in antiproliferative strategies. Inhibition of the malaria parasite’s polyamine biosynthetic pathway causes cytostatic arrest in the trophozoite stage but does not cure in vivo infections in the murine model of malaria. This is possibly due to exogenous polyamine salvage from the host, which replenishes the intracellular polyamine pool. This implies that disruption of polyamine metabolism as an antimalarial chemotherapy strategy may require targeting both polyamine biosynthesis and transport simultaneously.en© 2010 Louw et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Malaria parasitesPlasmodium falciparumPolyaminesArticle