Based on a novel antiviral theory, the reason why a virus can infect its target cells is because the gene expression pattern in the target cells is suitable for viral infection. Therefore, the alteration of the gene expression pattern in target cells means a reduced susceptibility to all viral infections. Analogously, the reason why sporozoites of malaria parasites can infect hepatocytes is because the gene expression pattern in hepatocytes is suitable for sporozoite infection. If a drug could be used to temporally alter the gene expression pattern in hepatocytes, the susceptibility to sporozoite liver infection will be reduced and thus could decrease or block infection of malaria. Since the drug only acts on hepatocytes, the malaria parasite will not develop resistance to this drug even after long-time repeated exposure.
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