Table 3.
Repurposing of antipathogenic drugs for indications beyond pathogen-caused diseases
| Antipathogenic drug or drug class | Traditional indication | New indication | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chloroquin (antimalarials, disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, DMARDs) | Malaria | Lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis | (Rainsford et al. 2015) |
| Doxycyclin, minocyclin (tetracyclines, antibiotics) | Bacterial infections, malaria | Schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer therapy | (Husain et al. 2017; Socias et al. 2018; Ben-Azu et al. 2018; Schmidtner et al. 2019; Antoszczak et al. 2020; Issy et al. 2020) |
| Erythromycin (macrolides, macrolide antibiotics, broad-spectrum antibiotics) | Bacterial infections | Gastric hypomotility | (Jun et al. 2014; Zimmermann et al. 2018) |
| Fluconazole (triazoles, azole antimycotics, antimycotics) | Fungal infections | Hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction | (El-Sherbeni and El-Kadi 2016; Kandhi et al. 2017) |
| Ivermectin (antiparasitics, antiparasitic drugs) | Parasitic diseases | Treatment of alcoholism, cancer therapy | (Yardley et al. 2015; Antoszczak et al. 2020) |
| Ceftriaxone (cephalosporins, antibiotics, β-lactam antibiotics, broad-spectrum antibiotics, broad-spectrum cephalosporins) | Bacterial infections | neurological disorders, drug dependency/withdrawal | (Yimer et al. 2019) |
| Rifampicin (ansamycins, tuberculostatics, tuberculocidal drugs, antimycobacterial drugs) | Mycobacterial infections | Neurodegenerative diseases | (Socias et al. 2018) |
| Ciclopirox | Fungal infections | Porphyria, ischemic stroke | (Urquiza et al. 2018; Feng et al. 2020) |
| Metronidazole (nitroimidazoles, antianaerobials, chemotherapeutics) | Bacterial infections | Trypanosoma cruzii infection | (Simões-Silva et al. 2017) |
| Macrolides (macrolide antibiotics, broad-spectrum antibiotics) | Bacterial infections | Chronic inflammatory diseases (asthma/chronic obstructive lung disease, osteoarthritis, cystic fibrosis), acute respiratory distress syndrome, sepsis, pneumonia | (Zimmermann et al. 2018; Reijnders et al. 2020) |
In parentheses, representative names of drug classes (both traditional and mechanistic) are provided