Plasmodium Proteases as Therapeutic Targets Against Malaria

Malaria is a major global parasitic disease responsible for tremendous health burden and mortality in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Plasmodium falciparum is the causative agent of severe malaria, which accounts for most of the global malaria-related deaths, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the enormous global efforts to curb the spread of the disease and significant decline in malaria-related deaths in the last decade, development of parasite resistance to currently used drugs is widespread, which necessitates the development of novel antimalarial targeting crucial parasite molecules. Parasite proteases are a group of molecules crucial for the development and propagation of the parasite inside the host cell. The major parasite-specific processes dependent on protease activity for their completion are hemoglobin degradation, merozoite egress from the host cell, and invasion of the host cells. A number of proteases of various classes are found in P. falciparum, many of which have the potential to be used as antimalarial drug targets. I this chapter, I have described the role of the proteases, which have the potential to be targeted for antimalarial drug development and the progresses made in the direction of drug development against these targets.