In silico screening for Plasmodium falciparum enoyl-ACP reductase inhibitors

The need for novel therapeutics against Plasmodium falciparum is urgent due to recent emergence of multi-drug resistant malaria parasites. Since fatty acids are essential for both the liver and blood stages of the malarial parasite, targeting fatty acid biosynthesis is a promising strategy for combatting P. falciparum. We present a combined computational and experimental study to identify novel inhibitors of enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase (PfENR) in the fatty acid biosynthesis pathway. A small-molecule database from ChemBridge was docked into three distinct PfENR crystal structures that provide multiple receptor conformations. Two different docking algorithms were used to generate a consensus score in order to rank possible small molecule hits. Our studies led to the identification of five low-micromolar pyrimidine dione inhibitors of PfENR.