Repurposing trypanocidal drugs to tackle amoebic gill disease in Atlantic Salmon

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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.