Background:
Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are communicable diseases caused by a
group of bacteria, viruses, protozoa and helminths prevalent in more than 145 countries that affect the
world’s poverty stricken populations. WHO enlists 18 NTDs amongst people living in endemic areas
having inaccessibility to preventive measures. Steps to reduce the global disease burden of the NTDs
need attention at multi-factorial levels. Control programmes, mass drug administrations, transmission
checks, eradication surveillances and diagnoses are some of them. The foremost in this list is confirmatory
diagnosis. A comprehensive summary of the innovative, high-impact, multiplexed, low-cost diagnostic
tools developed in the last decade that helped to meet the needs of users can depict a holistic approach
to further evaluate potential technologies and reagents currently in research.
Major Advancements:
A literature survey based on developing nano-biotechnological platforms to meet
the diagnostic challenges in NTDs towards development of a useful point-of-care (POC) unit is reported.
However, in order to pave the way for complete eradication more sensitive tools are required that are
user-friendly and applicable for use in endemic and low-resource settings. There are various novel research
progresses/advancements made for qualitative and quantitative measurement of infectious load in
some diseases like dengue, Chagas disease and leishmaniasis; though further improvements on the
specificity and sensitivity front are still awaited. Strategies to combat the problem of antimicrobial drug
resistance in diagnosis of NTDs have also been put forward by various research groups and organizations.
Moreover, the state-of-the-art “omics” approaches like metabolomics and metagenomics have also
started to contribute constructively towards diagnosis and prevention of the NTDs.
Conclusion:
A concrete solution towards a single specimen based common biomarker detection platform
for NTDs is lacking. Identifying robust biomarkers and implementing them on simple diagnostic
tools to ease the process of pathogen detection can help us understand the obstacles in current diagnostic
measures of the NTDs.
Background:
The prevalence of drug-resistant organisms has steadily increased over the past few decades worldwide. Especially in tuberculosis (TB) disease, the problems of co-morbidity and the rapid emergence of multidrug resistance have necessitated the development of multitarget-based therapeutic regimens. Several multitargeting compounds against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) have been studied through novel in silico tools but these have rendered reduced efficacy in clinical trials. The authors have focussed on many exotic targets belonging to crucial Mtb survival pathways whose molecular structures and functions are underexplored. Likewise, insights into the hidden possibilities of promiscuous compounds from natural products or repurposed drugs to inhibit other cellular proteins apart from their validated targets are also depicted in this review. In addition to the existing line of drugs currently recommended for multidrug-resistant TB, newer host-directed therapies could also be fruitful. Furthermore, several challenges, including safety/efficacy ratios of multitarget compounds highlighted here, can also be circumnavigated by researchers to design “smart drugs” for improved tuberculosis therapeutics.
Conclusion:
A holistic approach towards alleviating the existing drawbacks of drug discovery in drug-resistant TB has been outlined. Finally, considering the current needs, the authors have put forward an overall summary of possible trends in multitargeting that are significant for futuristic therapeutic solutions.
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