Abstract
Malaria remains one of the world's most devastating infectious diseases. Drug resistance to all classes of antimalarial agents has now been observed, highlighting the need for new agents that act against novel parasite targets. The complete sequencing of the Plasmodium falciparum genome has allowed the identification of new molecular targets within the parasite that may be amenable to chemotherapeutic intervention. In this review, we investigate four possible targets for the future development of new classes of antimalarial agents. These targets include histone deacetylase, the aspartic proteases or plasmepsins, aminopeptidases and the purine salvage enzyme hypoxanthine-xanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase.
Publication types
-
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
-
Review
MeSH terms
-
Aminopeptidases / antagonists & inhibitors
-
Animals
-
Antimalarials / chemistry*
-
Antimalarials / pharmacology
-
Antimalarials / therapeutic use
-
Aspartic Acid Endopeptidases / antagonists & inhibitors
-
Drug Design*
-
Enzyme Inhibitors / chemistry*
-
Enzyme Inhibitors / pharmacology
-
Enzyme Inhibitors / therapeutic use
-
Humans
-
Hypoxanthine Phosphoribosyltransferase / antagonists & inhibitors
-
Malaria, Falciparum / drug therapy*
-
Malaria, Falciparum / parasitology
-
Pentosyltransferases / antagonists & inhibitors
-
Plasmodium falciparum / drug effects*
-
Plasmodium falciparum / enzymology
-
Plasmodium falciparum / genetics
-
Protozoan Proteins / antagonists & inhibitors
Substances
-
Antimalarials
-
Enzyme Inhibitors
-
Protozoan Proteins
-
Pentosyltransferases
-
xanthine phosphoribosyltransferase
-
Hypoxanthine Phosphoribosyltransferase
-
Aminopeptidases
-
Aspartic Acid Endopeptidases
-
plasmepsin