24 25 26 27 2 28Abstract: 29 Background: Cryptosporidiosis is a major cause of diarrheal disease. However, the only drug 30 approved for cryptosporidiosis does not work well in high risk populations. Therefore, novel 31 drugs are urgently needed. Then, the identification of novel is necessary to develop new 32 therapies against this parasite. Recently, we have developed a rapid method to block gene 33 expression in Cryptosporidium by using pre-assembled complexes of Cryptosporidium 34 antisense RNA and human protein with slicer activity (Argonaute 2). We hypothesized that 35 structural proteins, proteases, enzymes nucleotide synthesis and transcription factors are 36 essential for parasite development, thus in this work we knock down expression of 4 selected 37 genes: Actin, Apicomplexan DNA-binding protein (AP2), Rhomboid protein 1 (Rom 1) and 38 nucleoside diphosphate kinase (NDK) and elucidated its role during invasion, proliferation and 39 egress of Cryptosporidium. 40 41 Methods: We used protein transfection reagents (PTR) to introduce pre-assembled complexes 42 of antisense RNA and human Argonaute 2 into Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts, the complexes 43 blocked expression of Actin (Act), Transcription factor AP2 (AP2), nucleoside diphosphate 44 kinase (DKN), and rhomboid protein 1 (Rom1). After gene silencing, we evaluated parasite 45 reduction using In vitro models of excystation, invasion, proliferation and egress. We evaluated 46 the potency of ellagic acid, a nucleoside diphosphate kinase inhibitor for anti-cryptosporidial 47 activity using a model of in vitro infection with human HCT-8 cells. 48 49 Results: Silencing of Act, AP2, NDK and Rom1 reduce significantly invasion, proliferation and 50 egress of Cryptosporidium. We showed that silencing of NDK markedly inhibited 51 Cryptosporidium proliferation. This was confirmed by demonstration that ellagic acid reduced 52 the number of parasites at micro molar concentrations (EC 50 =15-30 µM) without showing any 53 toxic effect on human cells. 54 55 Conclusions: Overall the results confirmed the usefulness RNA silencing can be used to 56 identify novel targets for drug development against Cryptosporidium. We identified ellagic acid 57 (EA), a nucleoside diphosphate kinase inhibitor also blocks Cryptosporidium proliferation. Since 58 EA is a dietary supplement approved for human use, then this compound should be studied as 59 a potential treatment for cryptosporidiosis. 3 60 Author summary 61 The World Health Organization reports diarrhea kills around 760,000 children under five every 62 year. Cryptosporidium infection is a leading cause of diarrhea morbidity and mortality. Current 63 therapies to treat this infection are suboptimal, therefore novel treatments are urgently needed. 64 We used genetic tools to identify novel targets for drug development, thus in this work we 65 evaluated the role of 4 genes during Cryptosporidium infection. We demonstrated that silencing 66 of nucleoside-diphosphate kinase (NDK) drastically reduced invasion, proliferation and e...