Antimalarial drugs and drug targets specific to fatty acid metabolic pathway of Plasmodium falciparum.

Plasmodium falciparum, a causitive agent of malaria, is the third most prevalent factor for mortility in the world. Falciparum malaria is an example of evolutionary and balancing selection. Because of mutation and natural selection, the parasite has developed resistance to most of the existing drugs. Under such circumstances, there is a growing need to develop new molecular targets in P. falciparum. A four membrane bound organelles called apicoplast, very much similar to that of chloroplast of plants, have been found in parasite. Therefore, the proteins involved in metabolic pathways of apicoplasts are important drug targets. Among the pathways in apicoplast, fatty acid biosynthetic pathway is the most important metabolic pathway in P. falciparum. Several studies have explored the role of different proteins involved in this pathway and antimalarial compounds against this target. In this review, we have studied the role of different proteins in fatty acid metabolism and designing, synthesis and evaluation of compounds against the targets identified in fatty acid metabolic pathway.