Anticancer Agents Against Malaria: Time to Revisit?

Overview

Journal Trends Parasitol

Specialty Parasitology

Date 2010 Jan 9

PMID 20056487

Citations 8

Authors

Alexis Nzila

John Okombo

Ruy Perez Becker

Roma Chilengi

Trudie Lang

Tim Niehues

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The emergence of artemisinin resistance could adversely impact the current strategy for malaria treatment; thus, new drugs are urgently needed. A possible approach to developing new antimalarials is to find new uses for old drugs. Some anticancer agents such as methotrexate and trimetrexate are active against malaria. However, they are commonly perceived to be toxic and thus not suitable for malaria treatment. In this opinion article, we examine how the toxicity of anticancer agents is just a matter of dose or 'only dose makes the poison', as coined in Paracelsus' law. Thus, the opportunity exists to discover new antimalarials using the anticancer pharmacopoeia.

Citing Articles

To quest new targets of parasite and their potential inhibitors to combat antimalarial drug resistance.

Biswas P, Roy R, Ghosh K, Nath D, Samadder A, Nandi S J Parasit Dis. 2024; 48(4):671-722.

PMID: 39493470 PMC: 11527868. DOI: 10.1007/s12639-024-01687-x.

Multistage and transmission-blocking targeted antimalarials discovered from the open-source MMV Pandemic Response Box.

Reader J, van der Watt M, Taylor D, Le Manach C, Mittal N, Ottilie S Nat Commun. 2021; 12(1):269.

PMID: 33431834 PMC: 7801607. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20629-8.

Organoarsenic Compounds with In Vitro Activity against the Malaria Parasite .

Basova S, Wilke N, Koch J, Prokop A, Berkessel A, Pradel G Biomedicines. 2020; 8(8).

PMID: 32748808 PMC: 7459655. DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines8080260.

Does it take three to tango? An unsuspected multimorbidity of CD8 T cell lymphoproliferative disorder, malaria, and EBV infection.

Ekemen S, Uzay A, Bassullu N, Dikicioglu-Cetin E, Matsuda K, Ince U Malar J. 2018; 17(1):349.

PMID: 30290813 PMC: 6173833. DOI: 10.1186/s12936-018-2497-9.

Evaluation of α,β-unsaturated ketones as antileishmanial agents.

Vasquez M, Iniguez E, Das U, Beverley S, Herrera L, Dimmock J Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2015; 59(6):3598-601.

PMID: 25801571 PMC: 4432202. DOI: 10.1128/AAC.04056-14.

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