Fig. 3

Boxplots showing the in vitro antiplasmodial activities (EC 50) of drugs predicted to target different essentiality categories of P. falciparum proteins (A and B) and druggability indices (C and D). Drug classifications and druggability indices were obtained from (https://tdrtargets.org/). Drugs predicted to target essential P. falciparum proteins, or those with uncertain effects or a druggability index of 1, exhibited the highest anti-parasitic activity. Essentiality data: slow, growth of the pathogen is slowed; sterile, organism cannot reproduce without the protein; uncertain, lack of the protein has uncertain changes; no changes, lack of the protein has no observable changes in the parasite; dispensable, organism can survive without the protein; organism cannot survive without the protein. Druggability index ranges from 0.1 (least druggable) to 1.0 (most druggable)