Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress, a Target for Drug Design and Drug Resistance in Parasitosis

Mei Peng; Fang Chen; Zhongdao Wu; Jia Shen

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2021.670874

Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress, a Target for Drug Design and Drug Resistance in Parasitosis

Front Microbiol. 2021 May 31:12:670874. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.670874. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Mei Peng^{1

2

3}, Fang Chen⁴, Zhongdao Wu^{1

2

3}, Jia Shen^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Parasitology of Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
² Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Control (SYSU), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China.
³ Provincial Engineering Technology Research Center for Biological Vector Control, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ School of Medicine, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China.

Abstract

Endoplasmic reticulum stress (ER stress) can be induced when cellular protein homeostasis is damaged, and cells can activate the unfolded protein response (UPR) to restore protein homeostasis or induce cell death to facilitate the survival of the whole system. Globally, parasites are a constant threat to human health and are therefore considered a serious public health problem. Parasitic infection can cause ER stress in host cells, and parasites also possess part or all of the UPR under ER stress conditions. In this review, we aim to clarify the role of ER stress pathways and related molecules in parasites for their survival and development, the pathogenesis of parasitosis in hosts, and the artemisinin resistance of Plasmodium, which provides some potential drug design targets to inhibit survival of parasites, relieves pathological damage of parasitosis, and solves the problem of artemisinin resistance.

Keywords: drug resistance; drug targets; endoplasmic reticulum stress; parasite; parasitosis.

Publication types

Review