Glycosides as Possible Lead Antimalarial in New Drug Discovery: Future Perspectives

Abstract

Malaria remains one of the major public health problems worldwide and it is responsible for a large number of morbidity and mortality. Especially, in the third world countries, it is still alarming. The development of drugresistant to Plasmodium falciparum strains has further degraded the overall situation. However, a limited number of effective drugs available emphasize how essential it is to establish new anti-malarial compounds. New antimalarial agents with distinctive structures and mechanism of action from the natural origin are thus immediately required to treat sensitive and drug-resistant strains of malaria. Over the years, phytopharmaceuticals have provided numerous lead compounds. Similarly, the success rate of botanicals in terms of clinical significance is also very high. Of them, glycoside is one of the most widely distributed and emerging class of plant secondary metabolites. This review provides an outlook to recently isolated glycosides from plants with marked antimalarial effects in an in-vitro and in-vivo protocols and thus ideal candidates for clinical trials to ascertain their clinical utility and or led compounds.

Keywords: Glycosides; Medicinal plants; anti-malarial activity; led antimalarial.