Nasimul Hoda
Jamia Millia Islamia, India
Title: Structure guided lead identification of potent Plasmodium falciparum phospho-ethanolamine methyltransferase inhibitors
Biography
Biography: Nasimul Hoda
Abstract
Malaria is a leading cause of human deaths affected by parasitic infection in tropical and subtropical reasons. Out of the four plasmodium species responsible for this disease in human Plasmodium falciparum is the most deadly. Due to the widespread resistance of the current antimalarial drugs, intense research efforts are focused on identification of new potent antimalarials. We report here, a structure based drug discovery strategy for design and synthesis of a series of potent and novel triazine based antimalarials. The X-ray structure of Plasmodium falciparum phosphoethanolamine methyltransferase (PfPMT) is used as a target as it is unique to the parasite. Trisubstituted triazine and its anlaogs are produced by an inexpensive three to four step synthesis giving excellent yields. Parasite growth inhibition assays further confirmed the activity of the molecules to be in 5 to 0.8 μM range showing selectivity towards the parasite over mammalian cells. Molecular dynamics simulations on the PfPMT-inhibitor complex shed light on the inhibition mechanism for further optimization of the lead compounds.