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Drug targets in Leishmania

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TLDR
In this review, some of the metabolic pathways that are essential and could be used as potential drug targets in Leishmania are discussed.
Abstract
Leishmaniasis is a major public health problem and till date there are no effective vaccines available. The control strategy relies solely on chemotherapy of the infected people. However, the present repertoire of drugs is limited and increasing resistance towards them has posed a major concern. The first step in drug discovery is to identify a suitable drug target. The genome sequences of Leishmania major and Leishmania infantum has revealed immense amount of information and has given the opportunity to identify novel drug targets that are unique to these parasites. Utilization of this information in order to come up with a candidate drug molecule requires combining all the technology and using a multi-disciplinary approach, right from characterizing the target protein to high throughput screening of compounds. Leishmania belonging to the order kinetoplastidae emerges from the ancient eukaryotic lineages. They are quite diverse from their mammalian hosts and there are several cellular processes that we are getting to know of, which exist distinctly in these parasites. In this review, we discuss some of the metabolic pathways that are essential and could be used as potential drug targets in Leishmania.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Screening strategies to identify new chemical diversity for drug development to treat kinetoplastid infections

TL;DR: The pragmatic approaches used to select compound libraries for screening against kinetoplastids, taking into account screening capacity are reviewed, together with attractive new approaches currently under investigation.
Journal ArticleDOI

Fruitful Decade for Antileishmanial Compounds from 2002 to Late 2011

TL;DR: The Sultanate of Oman’s Medicinal Plants and Marine Natural Products, University of Nizwa, and South Africa Department of Pharmaceutical and Biological Chemistry, UCL School of Pharmacy, London WC1N 1AX, United Kingdom.
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Arginase Inhibitors: A Rational Approach Over One Century.

TL;DR: A rational, step‐by‐step approach serves as guide in the present review where emphasis is placed on structure activity relationships of arginase inhibitors.
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Leishmaniasis: vaccine candidates and perspectives.

TL;DR: This review is an effort to identify molecules according to their homology with the host and their ability to be used as potent vaccine candidates.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

The genome of the kinetoplastid parasite, Leishmania major.

Alasdair Ivens, +103 more
- 15 Jul 2005 - 
TL;DR: The organization of protein-coding genes into long, strand-specific, polycistronic clusters and lack of general transcription factors in the L. major, Trypanosoma brucei, and Tritryp genomes suggest that the mechanisms regulating RNA polymerase II–directed transcription are distinct from those operating in other eukaryotes, although the trypanosomatids appear capable of chromatin remodeling.
Journal ArticleDOI

Trypanothione: a novel bis(glutathionyl)spermidine cofactor for glutathione reductase in trypanosomatids

TL;DR: The cofactor was purified from the insect trypanosomatid Crithidia fasciculata and identified as a novel glutathione-sperMidine conjugate, N1,N8-bis(L-gamma-glutamyl-L-hemicystinyl-glycyl)spermidine, for which the trivial name trypanothione is proposed.
Journal ArticleDOI

Opportunities and Challenges in Antiparasitic Drug Discovery

TL;DR: Challenges and opportunities for antiparasitic drug discovery are considered, highlighting some of the progress that has been made in recent years, partly through scientific advances, but also by more effective partnership between the public and private sectors.
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