Toxoplasmosis: Perspectives on the Study of New Therapeutic Targets [Toxoplasmose: Perspectivas no Estudo de Novos Alvos Terapêuticos]

Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular parasite responsible for causing the disease known as toxoplasmosis. This protozoan is easily found in nature and can cause infections in birds and mammals. Currently the toxoplasmosis treatment presents some limitations since the drugs used show low efficiency and can cause serious side-effects. Based on these therapeutic limitations arises the need for design and discovering more potent and selective new drugs against toxoplasmosis. In this context, the computational medicinal chemistry has been used as an important tool in the discovery of new therapeutic targets in the causative agents of several diseases, including toxoplasmosis. This work aims to quickly discuss some new molecular targets such as adenosine kinase, dihydrofolatereductase and thymidylate synthase enzymes, which have been exploited by computational techniques (docking and comparative modeling) in order to direct the planning of new drugs against toxoplasmosis.