Structural and mechanistic insight from antiviral and antiparasitic enzyme drug targets for tropical infectious diseases.

Structural and mechanistic insight from antiviral and antiparasitic enzyme drug targets for tropical infectious diseases. Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2019 Apr 04;59:65-72 Authors: de Godoy AS, Sachetto Fernandes R, Campos Aguiar AC, Vieira Bueno R, de Moraes Roso Mesquita NC, Carvalho Guido RV, Oliva G Abstract With almost half of the world population living at risk, tropical infectious diseases cause millions of deaths every year in developing countries. Considering the lack of economic prospects for investment in this field, approaches aiming the rational design of compounds, such as structure-based drug discovery (SBDD), fragment screening, target-based drug discovery, and drug repurposing are of special interest. Herein, we focused in the advances on the field of SBDD targeting arboviruses such as dengue, yellow fever, zika and chikungunya enzymes of the RNA replication complex (RC) and enzymes involved in a variety of pathways essential to ensure parasitic survival in the host, for malaria, Chagas e leishmaniasis diseases. We also highlighted successful examples such as promising new inhibitors and molecules already in preclinical/clinical phase tests, major gaps in the field and perspectives for the future of drug design for tropical diseases. PMID: 30954758 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Current Opinion in Structural Biology - Category: Biology Authors: Tags: Curr Opin Struct Biol Source Type: research