title: Bioinformatics tools for screening of antiparasitic drugs.
abstract: Drug development has become the Holy Grail of many structural bioinformatics groups. The explosion of information about protein structures, ligand-binding affinity, parasite genome projects, and biological activity of millions of molecules opened the possibility to correlate this scattered information in order to generate reliable computational models to predict the likelihood of being able to modulate a target with a small-molecule drug. Computational methods have shown their potential in drug discovery and development allied with in vitro and in vivo methodologies. The present review discusses the main bioinformatics tools available for drug discovery and development.
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Biociências, Laboratório de Bioquímica Estrutural, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. walter@azevedolab.net
authors.forename: Walter Filgueira
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: de Azevedo
authors.forename: Raquel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dias
authors.forename: Luis Fernando Saraiva Macedo
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Timmers
authors.forename: Ivani
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Pauli
authors.forename: Rafael Andrade
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Caceres
authors.forename: Milena Botelho Pereira
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Soares
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000977:Antiparasitic Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D016208:Databases, Factual; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D015195:Drug Design; D006801:Humans; D008024:Ligands; D008958:Models, Molecular; D010271:Parasites / Q000187:drug effects; D011506:Proteins / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000977:Antiparasitic Agents; D008024:Ligands; D011506:Proteins