Plasmodium dihydroorotate dehydrogenase: a promising target for novel anti-malarial chemotherapy.

ABSTRACT: Malaria remains a globally prevalent infectious disease that leads to significant morbidity and mortality. While there are a number of drugs approved for its treatment, drug resistance has compromised most of them, making the development of new drugs for the treatment and prevention of malaria essential. The completion of the Plasmodium falciparum genome and a growing understanding of parasite biology are fueling the search for novel drug targets. Despite this, few targets have been chemically validated in vivo. The pyrimidine biosynthetic pathway illustrates one of the best examples of successful identification of anti-malarial drug targets. This review focuses on recent studies to exploit the fourth enzyme in the de novo pyrimidine biosynthetic pathway of P. falciparum, dihydroorotate de

SUBMITTER: Phillips MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2883174 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature