Falcipain-2: A review on structurally diverse non-peptide inhibitors

The lack of a credible malaria vaccine for patients of all age group, the emergence and spread of parasites resistant to most of the clinically used antimalarial drugs and drug combination have aroused an imperative requirement to develop new drugs against malaria. The targeting of causal parasite Plasmodium falciparum's cysteine proteases involved in hemoglobin degradation, especially Falcipain-2 (FP-2) with small molecules inhibitors is one of the promising approaches for antimalarial chemotherapy. In the present review article, emphasis is given on rational and computational approaches used for developing promising non-peptidic inhibitors of FP-2. This review would be useful to researchers involved in the development of small molecule drug design strategies to target the Plasmodium falciparum cysteine protease, FP-2.