Multitask learning-driven identification of novel antitrypanosomal compounds.

Chagas disease and human African trypanosomiasis cause substantial death and morbidity, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, making the need for novel drugs urgent. Therefore, an explainable multitask pipeline to profile the activity of compounds against three trypanosomes ( and ) were created. These models successfully discovered four new experimental hits (, , and ).

Proteases of haematophagous arthropod vectors are involved in blood-feeding, yolk formation and immunity - a review.

Ticks, triatomines, mosquitoes and sand flies comprise a large number of haematophagous arthropods considered vectors of human infectious diseases. While consuming blood to obtain the nutrients necessary to carry on life functions, these insects can transmit pathogenic microorganisms to the vertebrate host. Among the molecules related to the blood-feeding habit, proteases play an essential role.

Characterization of PfDYN2, a dynamin-like protein of Plasmodium falciparum expressed in schizonts.

Dynamin superfamily members are large GTPases conserved through evolution mainly described as mechanochemical enzymes involved in membrane scission events. The Plasmodium falciparum dynamin-2 (Pfdyn2) gene was cloned from the FcB1 strain. PfDYN2 belongs to the dynamin-like protein subgroup of the dynamin superfamily since it possesses a large GTPase domain together with the conserved dynamin_M and GED domains.