Title:Calcium Antagonists: A Ready Prescription for Treating Infectious Diseases?
Volume: 13
Issue: 18
Author(s): Kevin B. Clark, Edward M. Eisenstein and Scott E. Krahl
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Antibiotic tolerance or resistance, antimicrobial drugs, biotechnology, disease transmission and virulence, microbial
pathogens and parasites, pharmaceuticals.
Abstract: Emergence of new and medically resistant pathogenic microbes continues to escalate toward worldwide public
health, wild habitat, and commercial crop and livestock catastrophes. Attempts at solving this problem with sophisticated
modern biotechnologies, such as smart vaccines and microbicidal and microbistatic drugs that precisely target parasitic
bacteria, fungi, and protozoa, remain promising without major clinical and industrial successes. However, discovery of a
more immediate, broad spectrum prophylaxis beyond conventional epidemiological approaches might take no longer than
the time required to fill a prescription at your neighborhood pharmacy. Findings from a growing body of research suggest
calcium antagonists, long approved and marketed for various human cardiovascular and neurological indications, may
produce safe, efficacious antimicrobial effects. As a general category of drugs, calcium antagonists include compounds
that disrupt passage of Ca2+ molecules across cell membranes and walls, sequestration and mobilization of free intracellular
Ca2+, and downstream binding proteins and sensors of Ca2+-dependent regulatory pathways important for proper cell
function. Administration of calcium antagonists alone at current therapeutically relevant doses and schedules, or with synergistic
compounds and additional antimicrobial medications, figures to enhance host immunoprotection by directly altering
pathogen infection sequences, life cycles, homeostasis, antibiotic tolerances, and numerous other infective, survival,
and reproductive processes. Short of being miracle drugs, calcium antagonists are welcome old drugs with new tricks capable
of controlling some of the most virulent and pervasive global infectious diseases of plants, animals, and humans, including
Chagas’ disease, malaria, and tuberculosis.
