Plant Engineered to Produce Higher Levels of Antimalarial Compound

Researchers used the genome sequence of Artemisia annua to boost the plant’s production of artemisinin.

Written byCatherine Offord

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WIKIMEDIA, KRISTIAN PETERSSweet wormwood, Artemisia annua, is the sole source of a potent antimalarial compound called artemisinin. The drug is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a treatment for malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum, but supply is currently well below demand.

Now, researchers in China have for the first time published a high-quality genome sequence for A. annua, and genetically modified the plant to produce much higher levels of artemisinin. The results were published yesterday (April 24) in Molecular Plant.

“Nearly half of the world’s population is at risk of malaria,” study coauthor Kexuan Tang of Shanghai Jiao Tong University says in a statement. “Our strategy for the large-scale production of artemisinin will meet the increasing demand for this medicinal compound and help address this global health problem.”

A. annua produces artemisinin at a rate of only about 0.1 percent to 1 percent of the dry weight of its leaves. Alternative approaches to producing the compound have mainly focused on making the drug through other means, ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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