Protein-drug interaction studies for development of drugs against Plasmodium falciparum.

The study of protein-drug interaction is of pivotal importance to understand the structural features essential for ligand affinity. The explosion of information about protein structures has paved the way to develop structure-based virtual screening approaches. Parasitic protein kinases have been pointed out as potential targets for antiparasitic development. The identification of protein kinases in the Plasmodium falciparum genome has opened the possibility to test new families of inhibitors as potential antimalarial drugs. In addition, other key enzymes which play roles in biosynthetic pathways, such as enoyl reductase and chorismate synthase, can be valuable targets for drug development. This review is focused on these protein targets that may help to materialize new generations of antimalarial drugs.