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A Review On Nanomedicine For Malaria
A Review On Nanomedicine For Malaria
Malaria is one of the major public health problems caused by parasites belonging to plasmodium genus
in the tropical and subtropical countries. Advancement of nanotechnology is opening up a window of
huge opportunities for better treatment of malaria. Different nano drug delivery systems such as
liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, dendrimer, nano-emulsion and polymeric nanoparticles are widely
investigated for treating malaria. In this review, the recent advances in nanomedicine for antimalarial
drug delivery are summarised.
INTRODUCTION
Malaria is one of the major public health Region (2%) (WHO, 2016). One of the
problems in tropical and subtropical reasons behind the large number of
countries. Malaria parasites are malaria associated deaths in WHO Africa
transmitted from infected host to region and WHO South-East Asia
susceptible host by the bite of an infected Region is the emergence of drug
Anopheles mosquito. As per the World resistance parasites especially in East
Health Organization’s (WHO) Malaria Africa (Korenromp et al., 2003) and
Report 2016, nearly 148–304 million Greater Mekong Subregion (Imwong et
people suffered from acute malaria al., 2017). Artemisinin combination
globally and 0.235–0.639 million among therapies (ACTs) are leading options for
the infected died. In 2015, it was treatment of malaria caused by
estimated that globally 429,000 people Plasmodium falciparum in the malaria
died due to malaria, most of them in prevalent regions of the world. But, the
WHO African Region (92%), followed emergence and spread of artemisinin
by the WHO South-East Asia Region resistant P. falciparum across the Greater
(6%) and WHO Eastern Mediterranean Mekong Subregion possess a serious
Figure 1: The life cycle of the parasite (adapted from Murambiwa et al., 2011).
+
that selected homing of chloroquine to reduce CD8 T cell and supress pRBC
malaria-infected erythrocytes helped in sequestration in the brain. It is an ideal
curing of the chloroquine-resistant adjuvant drug to prevent and treat
malarial infections with reduced dose cerebral malaria. Dende et al. (2015)
(Owais et al., 1995). Quinine dihydro- showed that curcumin alone was
chloride is one of the drugs of effective effective in reducing leukocyte as well as
in treating cerebral malaria, but, pRBC sequestration in the brain,
delivering it to the brain capillaries is maintaining BBB integrity whereas
difficult. Transferrin has high affinity for arteether prevented pRBC sequestration
receptors present in brain capillaries and in the brain, parasitemia builds up in
hence transferrin-targeted SLNs were blood. Combination of Curcumin-
prepared for targeted delivery of quinine artether administered after the onset of
hydrochloride to brain. SLNs prepared neurological symptoms, was very
using hydrogenated soy phosphatidyl- effective in counteracting all the
choline, triolein, cholesterol and distearyl investigated parameters governing
phosphatidylethanolamine, followed by leukocyte as well as pRBC sequestration.
covalent coupling of transferrin were All the animals were protected against
reported to be effective in delivering mortality at least for 90 days.
quinine hydrochloride to brain (Gupta et
al., 2007). Challenges and Future Prospects
Zhao et al. (2014) demonstrated Malaria is affecting large number of
during experimental cerebral malaria people worldwide with huge mortality
(ECM) that brain becomes severely rate. Nanoscale materials are offering
dysfunctional due to multiple unique and novel opportunities to
pathological events such as blood–brain address the issues related to the anti-
barrier (BBB) disruption, vascular malarial therapy. Today advancement of
leakage, and immune cell accumulation nanotechnology is providing powerful
(especially CD8 T cell infiltration). They platforms ranging from diagnostic,
demonstrated using mice model that detection of diseases in the early stage
olfactory bulb region is a vulnerable and delivery of therapeutics for the
location for vascular leakage during neglected diseases like malaria. But,
ECM. Curcumin has the potential to safety is a major concern for production
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