{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,1]],"date-time":"2026-07-01T07:56:09Z","timestamp":1782892569186,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":42,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"11","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,11]],"date-time":"2022-11-11T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1668124800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Shiv Nadar Foundation"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Toxins"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Prevailing drug resistance in malaria imposes the major roadblock for the existing interventions necessitating the timely need to search for alternative therapies. Ants in Solenopsis spp, termed \u2019Fire ants\u2019, are well known for their aggressive behavior, which leads to the release of toxic venom. Notably, the tribal natives of the malaria-laden densely forested Bastar region, Chhattisgarh, India, use fire ant sting-based therapy to cure malaria-like high fever. Inspired by this, we have collected the fire ants from the forest of Bastar and extracted peptide and alkaloid fractions from ant venom using HPLC and analyzed them by LC\/MS-based applications. Evaluation of the anti-malarial efficacy of these peptide fractions demonstrated a significant reduction in the growth of Plasmodium falciparum (Pf 3D7) in vitro, whereas the alkaloid fraction showed a negligible effect. in vitro hemolytic activity confirmed the venom peptide fraction to be non-hemolytic. Additionally, the venom peptide fraction is purely non-toxic to HepG2 cells. Anti-malarial efficiency of the same in Plasmodium berghei ANKA infected mice models showed a drastic reduction in parasitemia representing promising anti-malarial activity. Overall, our study has unraveled the scientific rationale underlying fire ant sting therapy used as a tribal naturotherapy for curing malaria-like fever, thus, introducing a way forward to develop nature-inspired anti-malarial chemotherapeutics.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/toxins14110789","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,14]],"date-time":"2022-11-14T04:24:10Z","timestamp":1668399850000},"page":"789","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Studying the Rationale of Fire Ant Sting Therapy Usage by the Tribal Natives of Bastar Revealed Ant Venom-Derived Peptides with Promising Anti-Malarial Activity"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Jyoti","family":"Kumari","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Life Sciences, School of Natural Sciences, Shiv Nadar Institute of Eminence, Delhi 201314, India"},{"name":"Special Centre for Molecular Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Raj Kumar","family":"Sah","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Special Centre for Molecular Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Nazar Mohamed","family":"Mohaideen. S","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Special Centre for Molecular Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0791-0598","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shakeel","family":"Ahmad","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Special Centre for Molecular Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India"},{"name":"Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kasprzaka 44\/52, 01-224 Warsaw, Poland"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Soumya","family":"Pati","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Life Sciences, School of Natural Sciences, Shiv Nadar Institute of Eminence, Delhi 201314, India"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shailja","family":"Singh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Special Centre for Molecular Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"WHO Global (2021). 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