title: Artemisinins: mechanisms of action and potential for resistance.
abstract: Artemisinins form the most important class of antimalarial currently available, particularly because they are effective against parasites resistant to almost all the other classes. Their mechanism of action is controversial. Some aspects of this controversy are reviewed here. Whilst there is no clinical resistance yet identified to artemisinins, the potential to examine the relationship between polymorphisms in PfATP6 (a target of artemisinins) in multidrug resistant isolates of Plasmodium falciparum, is also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Infectious Diseases, St. George's Hospital Medical School, Cranmer Terrace, London SW17 0RE, UK. s.krishna@sghms.ac.uk
authors.forename: Sanjeev
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Krishna
authors.forename: Anne-Catrin
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Uhlemann
authors.forename: Richard K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Haynes
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000962:Antimalarials / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D037621:Artemisinins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004351:Drug Resistance / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D010963:Plasmodium falciparum / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D000962:Antimalarials; D037621:Artemisinins