AUTHOR=Monteiro Júnior Júlio César , Krüger Arne , Palmisano Giuseppe , Wrenger Carsten TITLE=Transporter-Mediated Solutes Uptake as Drug Target in Plasmodium falciparum JOURNAL=Frontiers in Pharmacology VOLUME=13 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2022.845841 DOI=10.3389/fphar.2022.845841 ISSN=1663-9812 ABSTRACT=

Malaria remains a public health problem with still more than half a million deaths annually. Despite ongoing efforts of many countries, malaria elimination has been difficult due to emerging resistances against most traditional drugs, including artemisinin compounds - the most potent antimalarials currently available. Therefore, the discovery and development of new drugs with novel mechanisms of action to circumvent resistances is urgently needed. In this sense, one of the most promising areas is the exploration of transport proteins. Transporters mediate solute uptake for intracellular parasite proliferation and survival. Targeting transporters can exploit these processes to eliminate the parasite. Here, we focus on transporters of the Plasmodium falciparum-infected red blood cell studied as potential biological targets and discuss published drugs directed at them.