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Review
. 2020 Sep 22:14:3875-3889.
doi: 10.2147/DDDT.S265602. eCollection 2020.

Recent Progress in the Development of New Antimalarial Drugs with Novel Targets

Tafere Mulaw Belete  1
Affiliations
Review

Recent Progress in the Development of New Antimalarial Drugs with Novel Targets

Tafere Mulaw Belete. Drug Des Devel Ther. .

Abstract

Malaria is a major global health problem that causes significant mortality and morbidity annually. The therapeutic options are scarce and massively challenged by the emergence of resistant parasite strains, which causes a major obstacle to malaria control. To prevent a potential public health emergency, there is an urgent need for new antimalarial drugs, with single-dose cures, broad therapeutic potential, and novel mechanism of action. Antimalarial drug development can follow several approaches ranging from modifications of existing agents to the design of novel agents that act against novel targets. Modern advancement in the biology of the parasite and the availability of the different genomic techniques provide a wide range of novel targets in the development of new therapy. Several promising targets for drug intervention have been revealed in recent years. Therefore, this review focuses on the progress made on the latest scientific and technological advances in the discovery and development of novel antimalarial agents. Among the most interesting antimalarial target proteins currently studied are proteases, protein kinases, Plasmodium sugar transporter inhibitor, aquaporin-3 inhibitor, choline transport inhibitor, dihydroorotate dehydrogenase inhibitor, isoprenoid biosynthesis inhibitor, farnesyltransferase inhibitor and enzymes are involved in lipid metabolism and DNA replication. This review summarizes the novel molecular targets and their inhibitors for antimalarial drug development approaches.

Keywords: Plasmodium; antimalarial agents; drug resistance; mode of action; novel targets.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares that they have no competing interests for this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The life cycle of Plasmodium parasite in man. Stages and forms of the parasite at which different types of antimalarial drug acts.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Degradation of hemoglobin by protease.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Proposed mechanism of the parasite-induced PfATP4 and V‑type H +–ATPase in the death of infected erythrocytes following inhibition by cipargamin.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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