Parasitic protozoa lack the de novo purine biosynthetic pathway and rely ex
clusively on the salvage pathway for their purine nucleotide requirements(1
) Purine salvage enzymes are therefore potential chemotherapeutic targets,
This paper reports the cloning and deduced amino acid sequence of Plasmodiu
m falciparum adenylosuccinate synthetase (PfADSS), an enzyme involved in pu
rine salvage. PfADSS exhibits 67% homology with that of the human enzyme. O
n expression in E. coli, enzymatically active ADSS was produced as deduced
by functional complementation analysis. The PfADSS activity was shown to be
inhibited by hadacidin, a known competitive inhibitor of this enzyme.