Antiprotozoal drugs: challenges and opportunities
Abstract
Protozoans are widespread organisms in most habitats worldwide, being a paraphyletic group with an intricate evolutionary history [1,2]. There is a multitude of phyla, genera, and protozoan species, many of which ecologically and industrially relevant, but some of them are also parasites infecting humans and wild as well as domestic animals. The caused diseases after such infections range from mild to moderate (e.g. infections with Toxoplasma gondii or Entamoeba histolytica), may be rather serious conditions (in case of Cryptosporidium parvum, Giardia lamblia, Trichomonas vaginalis, Babesia spp. infections) or very serious and widespread ones, such as malaria (disease caused by at least five different Plasmodium species), leishmaniasis (a multitude of Leishmania species provoke disease), Chagas disease (produced by Trypanosoma cruzi), or African sleeping disease (caused by subspecies of T. brucei, i.e. T. b. gambiense and T.b.rhodesiense) [3,4], etc. Several fatal protozoal diseases are also produced by amoebae, such as Naegleria fowleri [5] Acanthamoeba spp [6]. or Balamuthia mandrillaris [6] which are fortunately rare. Albeit the 12 protozoan genera that produce human disease are now well studied (Table 1), the drug armamentarium to treat them is rather scarce. Indeed, few available drugs for effectively treating these conditions are available, they show relevant toxicity, low therapeutic index, and even worse, extensive resistance has been developed to most of them [7].…
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