Potential New Antimalarial Chemotherapeutics Based on Sphingolipid Metabolism
| Autor: | Eliezer Flescher, Irene Pankova-Kholmyansky |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2006 |
| Předmět: |
Ceramide
Plasmodium falciparum Pharmacology Ceramides Antimalarials chemistry.chemical_compound parasitic diseases Drug Discovery medicine Animals Humans Pharmacology (medical) Malaria Falciparum Artemisinin Protein kinase A Sphingolipids biology Mefloquine General Medicine biology.organism_classification Sphingolipid Infectious Diseases Oncology chemistry Growth inhibition Sphingomyelin Forecasting Signal Transduction medicine.drug |
| Zdroj: | Chemotherapy. 52:205-209 |
| ISSN: | 1421-9794 0009-3157 |
| Popis: | The discovery of new antimalarial drugs is mandatory to improve the effectiveness of antimalarial prophylaxis and treatment. In this review, we focused on sphingolipids as potential new targets for antimalarial drugs. Inhibition of sphingomyelin and/or glucosylceramide synthases leads to increased intracellular concentrations of ceramide and results in growth inhibition of Plasmodium falciparum. In mammalian cells, ceramide mediates death by chemotherapeutic drugs. We demonstrated that ceramide mediates the antimalarial effect of artemisinin and mefloquine by depletion of glutathione levels. Furthermore, ceramide and artemisinin activated p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase in P. falciparum, thus inhibiting its growth, apparently by a non-apoptotic mechanism. In summary, we propose novel options of antimalarials based on ceramide cytotoxic activity. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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