ABSTRACT
Leishmania is an obligate parasite present intracellularly and survives within the host macrophages by invading the host immune system. It causes Leishmaniasis, a global health problem. At the moment it is recognized as endemic in 89 different countries throughout five different continents. There are more than 12 million people who are infected in the world and 350 million who are at the risk of infection. The traditional treatments have limitations like high cost, toxicity and painful route of administration. The irregular and inappropriate use of the second line of drugs such as amphotericin B and miltefosine has raised drug resistance in parasites. All these available drugs are toxic to host cells along with the parasite. Therefore, it is an urgent need to develop new antiLeishmanial drugs to eradicate Leishmaniasis completely. The foremost requirement of such a target is to be present only in the parasite and absent in the host. Ergosterol biosynthetic pathway is unique in Leishmania but absents in the human being. Ergosterol is essential for growth, proliferation, and virulence of Leishmania. In this review, I have thrown light ergosterol biosynthetic pathway of Leishmania as the potential target for drug screening.
Keywords: Leishmania, Drug-development, Ergosterol, Leishmaniasis.