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Antimalarial Drugs and Drug Targets Specific to Fatty Acid Metabolic Pathway of Plasmodium falciparum
Author(s) -
Qidwai Tabish,
Khan Feroz
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
chemical biology and drug design
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.59
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1747-0285
pISSN - 1747-0277
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-0285.2012.01389.x
Subject(s) - apicoplast , plasmodium falciparum , metabolic pathway , biology , drug discovery , malaria , biochemistry , antimalarial agent , fatty acid , fatty acid synthesis , metabolic network , fatty acid metabolism , metabolism , computational biology , apicomplexa , immunology
Plasmodium falciparum, a causitive agent of malaria, is the third most prevalent factor for mortility in the world. Falciparum malaria is an example of evolutionary and balancing selection. Because of mutation and natural selection, the parasite has developed resistance to most of the existing drugs. Under such circumstances, there is a growing need to develop new molecular targets in P. falciparum . A four membrane bound organelles called apicoplast, very much similar to that of chloroplast of plants, have been found in parasite. Therefore, the proteins involved in metabolic pathways of apicoplasts are important drug targets. Among the pathways in apicoplast, fatty acid biosynthetic pathway is the most important metabolic pathway in P. falciparum . Several studies have explored the role of different proteins involved in this pathway and antimalarial compounds against this target. In this review, we have studied the role of different proteins in fatty acid metabolism and designing, synthesis and evaluation of compounds against the targets identified in fatty acid metabolic pathway.