Antimalarial Agents Derived from Metal-Amodiaquine Complexes with Activity in Multiple Stages of the Plasmodium Life Cycle.

Abstract

Malaria is the one of the deadliest infectious diseases worldwide. Chemically, quinolines are excellent ligands for metal coordination and are deployed as drugs for malaria treatment. There is a growing body of evidence indicating that metal complexes can be conjugated with antimalarial quinolines to be used as chemical tools to overcome the disadvantages of quinolines, improving their bioactive speciation, cellular distribution, and subsequently broadening the spectrum of activity to multiple stages of the complex Plasmodium life cycle. In this study, four novel complexes of ruthenium(II)- and gold(I)-containing amodiaquine (AQ) were synthesized, and a careful chemical characterization revealed the precise coordination site of AQ to the metals. Their speciation in solution was investigated, demonstrating the stability of the quinoline-metal bond. RuII - and AuI -AQ complexes were demonstrated to be potent and efficacious in inhibiting parasite growth in multiple stages of the Plasmodium life cycle as assayed in vitro and in vivo. These properties could be attributed to the ability of the metal-AQ complexes to reproduce the suppression of heme detoxification induced by AQ, while also inhibiting other processes in the parasite life cycle; this can be attributed to the action of the metallic species. Altogether, these findings indicate that metal coordination with antimalarial quinolines is a potential chemical tool for drug design and discovery in malaria and other infectious diseases susceptible to quinoline treatment.

• Authors: Legna Colina-Vegas, Mariana da Cruz B Silva, Caroline de Souza Pereira, Ariane Isis Barros, Joaquim Araújo Nobrega, Maribel Navarro, Matthias Rottmann, Sarah D'Alessandro, Nicoletta Basilico, Alzir Azevedo Batista, Diogo R M Moreira
• Journal: Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) (Chemistry) Vol. 29 Issue 55 Pg. e202301642 (Oct 02 2023) ISSN: 1521-3765 [Electronic] Germany
• PMID: 37427863 (Publication Type: Journal Article)
• Copyright: © 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.

Chemical References

• Antimalarials
• Amodiaquine
• Coordination Complexes
• Quinolines

Topics

• Humans
• Antimalarials (pharmacology, therapeutic use)
• Amodiaquine (pharmacology)
• Coordination Complexes (pharmacology, therapeutic use)
• Plasmodium
• Malaria (drug therapy)
• Quinolines (pharmacology, therapeutic use)
• Plasmodium falciparum