Whole-Cell Phenotypic Screening of Medicines for Malaria Venture Pathogen Box Identifies Specific Inhibitors of Plasmodium falciparum Late-Stage Development and Egress

Abstract

We report a systematic, cellular phenotype-based antimalarial screening of the Medicines for Malaria Venture Pathogen Box collection, which facilitated the identification of specific blockers of late-stage intraerythrocytic development of Plasmodium falciparum . First, from standard growth inhibition assays, we identified 173 molecules with antimalarial activity (50% effective concentration [EC 50 ] ≤ 10 μM), which included 62 additional molecules over previously known antimalarial candidates from the Pathogen Box.