Kamal, Muntasir, Mukherjee, Suprabhat, Joshi, Bishnu, Sindhu, Zia-ud-Din, Wangchuk, Phurpa, Haider, Shawkat, Ahmed, Nurnabi, Talukder, Md. Hasanuzzaman, Geary, Timothy G., and Yadav, Arun K. (2023) Model nematodes as a practical innovation to promote high throughput screening of natural products for anthelmintics discovery in South Asia: Current challenges, proposed practical and conceptual solutions. Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology, 256 (2023). 111594.

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Abstract

With the increasing prevalence of anthelmintic resistance in animals recorded globally, and the threat of resistance in human helminths, the need for novel anthelmintic drugs is greater than ever. Most research aimed at discovering novel anthelmintic leads relies on high throughput screening (HTS) of large libraries of synthetic small molecules in industrial and academic settings in developed countries, even though it is the tropical countries that are most plagued by helminth infections. Tropical countries, however, have the advantage of possessing a rich flora that may yield natural products (NP) with promising anthelmintic activity. Focusing on South Asia, which produces one of the world’s highest research outputs in NP and NP-based anthelmintic discovery, we find that limited basic research and funding, a lack of awareness of the utility of model organisms, poor industry-academia partnerships and lack of technological innovations greatly limit anthelmintics research in the region. Here we propose that utilizing model organisms including the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, that can potentially allow rapid target identification of novel anthelmintics, and Oscheius tipulae, a closely related, free-living nematode which is found abundantly in soil in hotter temperatures, could be a much-needed innovation that can enable cost-effective and efficient HTS of NPs for discovering compounds with anthelmintic/antiparasitic potential in South Asia and other tropical regions that historically have devoted limited funding for such research. Additionally, increased collaborations at the national, regional and international level between parasitologists and pharmacologists/ethnobotanists, setting up government-industry-academia partnerships to fund academic research, creating a centralized, regional collection of plant extracts or purified NPs as a dereplication strategy and HTS library, and holding regional C. elegans/O. tipulae-based anthelmintics workshops and conferences to share knowledge and resources regarding model organisms may collectively promote and foster a NP-based anthelmintics landscape in South Asia and beyond.

Item ID:	80592
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1872-9428
Copyright Information:	© 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Date Deposited:	02 Oct 2023 23:51
FoR Codes:	32 BIOMEDICAL AND CLINICAL SCIENCES > 3299 Other biomedical and clinical sciences > 329999 Other biomedical and clinical sciences not elsewhere classified @ 50% 34 CHEMICAL SCIENCES > 3405 Organic chemistry > 340502 Natural products and bioactive compounds @ 50%
SEO Codes:	20 HEALTH > 2099 Other health > 209999 Other health not elsewhere classified @ 50% 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280112 Expanding knowledge in the health sciences @ 50%
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