The current drug options for the treatment of chronic Chagas disease have not been sufficient and high hopes
have been placed on the use of genomic data from the human parasite
Trypanosoma cruzi
to identify new drug targets
and develop appropriate treatments for both acute and chronic Chagas disease. However, the lack of a complete
assembly of the genomic sequence and the presence of many predicted proteins with unknown or unsure functions
has hampered our complete view of the parasite’s metabolic pathways. Moreover, pinpointing new drug targets has
proven to be more complex than anticipated and has revealed large holes in our understanding of metabolic pathways
and their integrated regulation, not only for this parasite, but for many other similar pathogens. Using an in
silico comparative study on pathway annotation and searching for analogous and specific enzymes, we have been
able to predict a considerable number of additional enzymatic functions in
T. cruzi. Here we focus on the energetic
pathways, such as glycolysis, the pentose phosphate shunt, the Krebs cycle and lipid metabolism. We point out many
enzymes that are analogous to those of the human host, which could be potential new therapeutic targets.
