Antimalarial Drug Discovery using Triazoles to Overcome Chloroquine Resistance
Malaria is considered as one of the most prevalent and debilitating diseases affecting humans. Plasmodium falciparum is the most virulent form of the parasite which developed resistance to several antimalarial drugs. Chloroquine is one of the most successful antimalarials developed that is safe, eff...
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| Format: | Others |
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PDXScholar
2015
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| Online Access: | https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/2506 https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3511&context=open_access_etds |
| Summary: | Malaria is considered as one of the most prevalent and debilitating diseases affecting humans. Plasmodium falciparum is the most virulent form of the parasite which developed resistance to several antimalarial drugs. Chloroquine is one of the most successful antimalarials developed that is safe, effective, and cheap. However, its use has been limited due to the emergence of drug resistance. Click chemistry, particularly, the copper(I)-catalyzed reaction between azides and alkynes has shown to have a cutting-edge advantage in medicinal chemistry by its reliability, selectivity and biocompatibility.
Triazole-based antimalarials were synthesized via copper(I)-catalyzed alkyne-azide cycloaddition reaction by modifying the aliphatic chains terminal of chloroquine. The compounds synthesized contain triazole ring directly connected to an aromatic ring or via a piperazine linker. When tested for their in vitro antimalarial activity against D6, Dd2 and 7G8 strains of P. falciparum, 12 out of 28 compounds showed better activity against chloroquine resistant strains. Particularly, PL403 and PL448 exhibited potent activity than chloroquine against CQ-resistant strains Dd2 and 7G8, with IC50 values of 12.8 & 14.5 nM, and 15.2 & 11 nM respectively.
The efficiency of synthesizing several triazole-based antimalarials have proven click chemistry to be fast and efficient reaction. Generally, para-substitutions and di-substitutions with electron-withdrawing groups were found to be beneficial for having better antimalarial activity for these group of click compounds. Moreover, the incorporation of piperazine linker has brought an enhanced antimalarial activity. |
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