Repurposing trypanocidal drugs to tackle amoebic gill disease in Atlantic Salmon

由Perurans新阿米巴引起的阿米巴鳃病(AGD)是鲑鱼养殖中的一种主要病害。目前治疗选择极其有限。利用格拉斯哥大学现有的最先进的药物发现管道，我们建议在爱尔兰一个独特的试验点对候选药物进行体内测试之前，在苏格兰测试现有许可和实验药物对动粒体病(查加斯病、睡眠病、利什曼病)的效力。至关重要的是，Perurans有一种内生共生的动质体(生活在每个N.perurans细胞内的一种动质体)，它依赖于它进行必要的代谢过程。基于杀死内共生菌将导致宿主死亡的假设，我们的方法承诺提供新药来解决水产养殖中的一个棘手问题。通过这样做，它甚至可能降低这些药物在热带地区的医疗和兽医应用成本。

Amoebic gill disease (AGD), caused by Neoparamoeba perurans, is as a major disease in salmonid aquaculture. Treatment options are currently extremely limited. Using an existing state-of the-art drug discovery pipeline at the University of Glasgow, we propose to test the potency of existing licensed and experimental drugs used against the kinetoplastid diseases (Chagas Disease, Sleeping Sickness, Leishmania) for activity against N. perurans in vitro in Scotland prior to in vivo testing of the drug candidates at a unique trial site in Ireland. Crucially N. perurans has an endosymbiotic kinetoplastid (a kinetoplastid living inside every N. perurans cell) on which it relies for essential metabolic processes. Working on the hypothesis that killing the endosymbiont will lead to death of its host, our approach promises to deliver new drugs to address an intractable problem in aquaculture. In doing so it may even drive the costs of these drugs down for medical and veterinary applications in the tropics.