Title:Potential Drug Targets in the Pentose Phosphate Pathway of Trypanosomatids
Volume: 25
Issue: 39
关键词:
锥虫病,治疗,戊糖磷酸途径,药物靶点
摘要: The trypanosomatids, Trypanosoma brucei, Trypanosoma cruzi and Leishmania
spp, are causative agents of important human diseases such as African sleeping sickness,
Chagas’ disease and Leishmaniasis, respectively. The high impact of these diseases
on human health and economy worldwide, the unsatisfactory available chemotherapeutic
options and the absence of human effective vaccines, strongly justifies the search for new
drugs. The pentose phosphate pathway has been proposed to be a viable strategy to defeat
several infectious diseases, including those from trypanosomatids, as it includes an oxidative
branch, important in the maintenance of cell redox homeostasis, and a non-oxidative
branch in which ribose 5-phosphate and erythrose 4-phosphate, precursors of nucleic acids
and aromatic amino acids, are produced. This review provides an overview of the
available chemotherapeutic options against these diseases and discusses the potential of
genetically validated enzymes from the pentose phosphate pathway of trypanosomatids to
be explored as potential drug targets.