What is an antifolate drug?

(AN-tee-FOH-layt) A type of drug that stops cells from using folic acid to make DNA and may kill cancer cells. Certain antifolates are used to treat some types of cancer and inflammatory conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis.

What is meant by the term drug resistance?

Listen to pronunciation. (… reh-ZIH-stunts) When cancer cells or microorganisms, such as bacteria or viruses, don’t respond to a drug that is usually able to kill or weaken them.

How do antifolate drugs work?

Antifolate drugs act by inhibiting enzymes for synthesis or acquisition of folate cofactors from nutritional and other sources, thereby affecting cellular metabolism through depletion of the folate cofactors (see entry on “Folate Metabolism” and Muller and Hyde 2013 and entry on “Vitamin Metabolism in the Malaria …

Is methotrexate an antifolate?

Methotrexate is an antifolate and antimetabolite originally developed to treat malignancy. In the setting of RA, it is given at much lower doses than when given as an anticancer agent.

Which of the following is an antifolate anticancer drug?

Antifolates are the oldest of the antimetabolite class of anticancer agents and were one of the first modern anticancer drugs. The first clinically useful antifolate, described in 1947, was 2,4-diamino-pteroylglutamate (4-amino-folic acid; aminopterin; AMT) which yielded the first-ever remissions in childhood leukemia.

Is sulfadoxine an antifolate?

Abstract. Antimalarial drugs including the antifolate, pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine (PS), can modulate the prevalence and intensities of gametocytaemia following treatment of acute malaria infections. They may also directly influence the transmission and spread of drug insensitivity.

What are the types of drug resistance?

Antimicrobial resistance mechanisms fall into four main categories: (1) limiting uptake of a drug; (2) modifying a drug target; (3) inactivating a drug; (4) active drug efflux.

Is phenytoin an antifolate?

Drugs that incidentally antagonize folate Such drugs include some anticonvulsants (valproic acid, carbamazepine, phenobarbital, phenytoin, and primidone) and trimethoprim. Lamotrigine is also an anticonvulsant with known (from in vitro testing) weak anti-folate effects.

Is leucovorin folic acid?

Leucovorin is in a class of medications called folic acid analogs. It works by protecting healthy cells from the effects of methotrexate or similar medications while allowing methotrexate to enter and kill cancer cells.

Does folic acid interfere with chemotherapy?

Folic acid can interfere with certain chemotherapy drugs.