Trypanosomes, application

With the exception of sterols most membrane lipids are conformationally flexible molecules. The question arises whether the concept of conformational restriction can be extended from peptides to the field of sphingolipids. The observation that conformationally restricted derivatives of myristic acid have selective toxicity towards trypanosomes demonstrates that this strategy is also applicable... 

A new drug molecule IMOL 881 111 was reported to show interesting trypanocidal properties. The test results on animal models indicated activity against several trypanosome species, both in the veterinary and in the human medicine application fields <1993MI261>. 

However, there are a number of topics that we could not cover in the two volumes (Vols. 29 and 30) due to space constraints. For example, we could not include a discussion of protein prenylation in pathogenic fungi and trypanosomes and the development of inhibitors for therapeutic applications. In addition, we did not sufficiently discuss proteins that recognize and interact with prenylated proteins and the biological functions of these protein-protein interactions. Future areas to cover should also include expanded discussion on the roles that prenylated proteins play in plants... 

It was quickly discovered that RNAi works in Trypanosome brucei as well as it does in C. elegans [105]. Since that time, RNAi mechanisms have been extensively studied in T. brucei [106]. The technology is now being used extensively to dissect different biochemical pathways in T. brucei [107] as well as to study potential therapeutic applications [109-110]. 

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