Naegleria fowleri: Protein structures to facilitate drug discovery for the deadly, pathogenic free-living amoeba.

ABSTRACT: Naegleria fowleri is a pathogenic, thermophilic, free-living amoeba which causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). Penetrating the olfactory mucosa, the brain-eating amoeba travels along the olfactory nerves, burrowing through the cribriform plate to its destination: the brain's frontal lobes. The amoeba thrives in warm, freshwater environments, with peak infection rates in the summer months and has a mortality rate of approximately 97%. A major contributor to the pathogen's high mortality is the lack of sensitivity of N. fowleri to current drug therapies, even in the face of combination-drug therapy. To enable rational drug discovery and design efforts we have pursued protein production and crystallography-based structure determination efforts for likely drug targets from N. fowle

SUBMITTER: Tillery L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7990177 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature