Pharmacophore Modeling Approach in Drug Discovery Against the Tropical Infectious Disease Malaria

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Malaria remains to be a life-threatening disease in the developing world. Recent reports show that the worldwide progress in reducing malaria has slowed. It accounts for causing more than 2.2 million cases and 405,000 deaths in 2018. Therefore, the situation demands the need for the development of new techniques or drugs against malaria. Several antimalarials have shown improvement in the treatment of malaria, but the emergence of drug resistance has intensified the need for the development of novel drugs. Drug discovery is an expensive, laborious, and timetaking process. Alternative to traditional drug design, computer-aided drug design plays a significant role. In this respect, a class of computational techniques known as pharmacophore modeling is considered beneficial for discovering novel lead compounds. Pharmacophore modeling with the virtual screening method has become a popular method for the screening of hit molecules. Pharmacophore modeling techniques are often implemented with molecular docking to improve the outcome of the virtual screening. The current study focuses on the pharmacophore modeling methods used to discover various novel antimalarials. According to the literature, this method is valuable in processes like virtual screening, design of effective hit molecules, and optimization of lead towards clinical trials. The reader will gain insight into the successful applications of the pharmacophore-based virtual screening to discover antimalarials.