Sickle hemoglobin polymerization and antisickling medicinal plants

Abstract

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a dilapidating disorder that is associated with organ destruction and decreased life expectancy. Therapeutic remedies that lead to fundamental cure of SCD such as, bone marrow and stem cell transplantations, as well as gene replacement therapy, are very costly and unaffordable to the disease sufferers in developing countries. In regions where these therapeutic approaches are possible, there are also limitations such as immunologic transplant rejection, difficulty in prognosis, difficulty in obtaining a suitable donor, end-organ dysfunction, and adverse health effects, especially among the older sufferers of this disease. The eagerness of researchers to develop new drugs for the amelioration of the crisis associated with SCD and a possible cure of the disease has led to the discovery of biomolecular agents that inhibit the mechanisms of HbS polymerization as well as medicinal plants with antisickling potentials. The antisickling potency of medicinal plants should be harnessed through research funding and efforts geared towards the discovery of molecules in such plants with HbS polymerization inhibitory effects.