Description

Diseases produced by protozoan parasites are one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality around the world, affecting millions of people and domestic animals. Among these diseases, leishmaniasis has become the second most common cause of death, with a very significant (42-fold) increment during the past twenty years. Due to unavailability of vaccines, failures of insecticides to control vector, measures are solely dependent upon chemotherapy. The emergence of drug resistance against presently available leishmaniasis drugs has deteriorated the situation.Unfortunately, limited information is available on biochemical and molecular mechanism that contribute to drug resistance in field isolates. In present book, mechanism of drug resistance in field isolates of Leishmania sps has also been explored. Further trypanothione reductase, a trypanosomatids target enzyme, has been cloned from L. donovani, expressed in E.coli and characterized for its properties to evaluate its potential as novel drug target. The book will open new vistas in exploitation of novel drug targets as a strategy to handle drug resistance problem of various parasitic diseases including leishmaniasis.