Infections caused by the protozoan parasites Trypanosoma cruzi, Trypanosoma brucei, and Leishmania spp. are among the most relevant public health problems in the developing countries. Furthermore, climatic changes and migratory fluxes of the human population are broadening the former geographic restrictions of most of these diseases. Only a few therapeutic treatments are available for these infections, and main drawbacks of drugs in use are their low efficiency, high toxicity, and the emergence of strains resistant to available treatments. All these facts make the research on new drug targets and strategies for developing new drug therapeutic strategies a relevant issue.

We invite investigators to contribute original research papers and full-length reviews on the discovery of novel enzyme targets which will contribute to have a picture of the state of the art on trypanosomatid enzymes research oriented to therapeutic applications. The enzymes to be covered include, but are not limited to protein kinases and phosphatases associated to signal transduction and cell cycle, energetic metabolism phosphotransferases (arginine kinase, adenylate kinase, and nucleoside diphosphate kinase), amino acid and fatty acid metabolism, glycosomal enzymes, transsialidases and proteases involved in cell invasion process, polyamines and trypanothione synthesis, detoxification and redox enzymes, purines and pyrimidines metabolism, RNA transsplicing processing, and kinetoplast/nucleus associated enzymes. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• New enzyme drug targets
• Parasite enzymes/metabolic pathways absent in mammalian hosts
• In silico prediction of putative enzyme drug targets
• High-throughput platforms to evaluate new drugs and compound libraries as enzyme inhibitors
• Genetic and biochemical tools for target validation of enzyme targets

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