Phosphofructokinase: structural and functional aspects and design of selective inhibitors

29 Aug 2012

Human African trypanosomiasis, also commonly known as sleeping sickness, is a disease that leads to many deaths worldwide and is caused by protozoan parasites. When in the bloodstream these parasites can only produce the ATP (adenosine triphosphate) they need to survive via a glycolytic pathway, making this pathway essential for the parasite’s survival.

Phosphofructokinase is a kinase enzyme that phosphorylates fructose 6-phosphate in the glycolysis metabolic pathway, and is of central importance to carbohydrate metabolism. As such it is a very promising target for anti-trypanosomal drug design to treat sleeping sickness.

In this review Renata B. Oliveira et al. present a survey of recent literature regarding the structural and functional properties of phosphofructokinase as well as discussing its importance as a target in the development of selective therapeutics to treat Human African trypanosomiasis.

Read the full review here…