The main problem regarding the
chemotherapy of
filariasis is that no safe and effective
drug is available yet to combat the adult human filarial worms. Setaria cervi, the causal organism of
setariasis and lumbar
paralysis in cattle, is routinely employed as a model organism for conducting biochemical and enzymatic studies on filarial parasites. In view of the practical difficulties in procuring human strains of Wuchereria bancrofti and Brugia malayi for
drug screening, the bovine filarial parasite S. cervi, resembling the human species in having microfilarial periodicity and chemotherapeutic response to known antifilarial agents, is widely used as a model in such studies. For a rational approach to antifilarial
chemotherapy, knowledge of the biochemical composition and metabolic pathways of this helminth parasite may be of paramount importance, so that more potent antifilarial agents based on specific
drug targets can be identified in
drug discovery programmes. The present review provides an update on the biochemistry of the important metabolic pathways functioning within this potentially important bovine parasite, that have so far been studied, and on those that need to be investigated further so as to identify novel
drug targets that can be exploited for designing new antifilarial drugs.