Avaliação da atividade leishmanicida de compostos orgânicos contendo prata em sua estrutura

Abstract

Leishmaniasis is a group of diseases most of which are zoonotic and are promoted by protozoan parasites of Leishmania genus, threatening around 350 million individuals in 98 countries. Since 1940s, treatment is based on pentavalent antimonials, amphotericin B and pentamidines, however the toxicity of these, the persistence of side effects and the duration of treatment are the main difficulties in the therapy of patients with such disease. In this context, the research for new, less toxic and more effective drugs is of utmost importance. As reported on literature, the association of silver compounds and diimine binders has leishmanicidal activity, the present study evaluated the anti-Leishmania activity in vitro and in vivo of organic compounds containing this metal in its structure (JB3, JB4, JB5, JB5SF And JB6), in addition to the 2-thionaimidazoline and phenanthroline binders and these probable activity mechanisms. With this aim, analyzes of leishmanicidal activities in promastigotes and amastigotes, in vitro context, were performed for IC50 determination, in addition to cytotoxicity in murine peritoneal macrophages using MTT methodology to CC50 determination. Evaluating possible mechanisms of these compounds action, enzymatic inhibition assays were performed using r-CPB2.8 isoform; electrophoresis to evaluate DNA degradation; atomic force microscopy and nitric oxide dosage to evaluate the interaction of these with the parasite and/or macrophage. For in vivo analysis, real-time PCR was performed to quantify the parasite bulk of hamsters infected with L. (L.) infantum chagasi after experimental treatment. The compound that presented the best results on L. (L.) amazonensis (8.06 μg/mL, 1.30 μg/mL, respectively) and L. (L.) infantum chagasi (1.46 μg/mL, 8.21 μg/mL, respectively) activity was JB5, and that showed the lowest toxicity was 2- thionamidazoline. As some compounds presented considerable toxicity, this trait was evaluated on the phenanthroline binder and CC50 was equal 30.80 μg/mL, concluding that this contributes considerably to compounds toxicity. Therefore, the leishmanicidal activity against JB5SF parasite forms (without the phenanthroline group) was evaluated and IC50 ranging from 1.80 and 8.91 μg/mL. Although 2-thionaimidazoline showed the lowest toxicity, it was not as efficient to reduce the amastigotes tissue parasitic bulk as Glucantime. However, the compound JB5SF that had the highest selectivity index (40,34) was able to reduce the parasitic load of the tissue amastigotes, presenting similar statistics, in the liver compared to the reference drug. The evaluated compounds showed no significant inhibitory activity against cysteine proteases (rCPB2.8) and no degradation of parasite DNA. Specifically, 5.0 μg/mL of JB5SF did not produce protozoal membrane modifications and did not alter the significantly surface area of the infected macrophage. However, 10.0 μg/mL JB5SF concentration associated with LPS increased NO production in infected macrophage when compared to untreated. Although the compound action mechanism on the parasite has not been defined, it is possible inferred that the same could contribute to immune response by stimulating macrophages in phagocytosis process