Aromatic dicationic molecules possess impressive activity against a broad spectrum of microbial pathogens, including Pneumocystis carinii, Cryptosporidium parvum, and Candida albicans. In this work, 58 aromatic cations were examined for inhibitory activity against axenic amastigote-like Leishmania donovani parasites. In general, the most potent of the compounds were substituted diphenyl furan a...

Antileishmanial activities of 91 synthetic phospholipids against Leishmania donovani were evaluated in vitro and cytotoxicity assessed against two mammalian cell lines. Promising compounds were tested further in vivo. In vitro structure-activity relationships showed a positive contribution of head groups bearing ring systems (N-methylpiperidino and N-methylmorpholino) to antileishmanial activity.

Recombinant granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (rGM-CSF) obtained from cloned complementary Mo cell DNA and expressed in COS-1 cells activates cultured peripheral blood monocyte-derived macrophages in vitro to become cytotoxic for intracellular L. donovani. The antileishmanial effect of rGM-CSF, which can be completely neutralized by anti-rGM-CSF antiserum, is maximal after 36 h p...

The root extract and fractions of Croton zambesicus were investigated for anticancer activity against HeLa cells, DNA interaction, immunomodulatory and antileishmanial activities. The GCMS analysis of the most active fraction against HeLa cell was carried. The root extract was found to exert significant anticancer activity with the hexane fraction exhibiting the most pronounced effect. The crud...

A series of cinnamic acid conjugates of primaquine and chloroquine were evaluated for their in vitro antileishmanial activities. Although primaquine derivatives had modest activity, chloroquine conjugates exhibited potent activity against both promastigotes (50% inhibitory concentration [IC50] = 2.6 to 21.8 μM) and intramacrophagic amastigotes (IC50 = 1.2 to 9.3 μM) of Leishmania infantum. Both...

The S-containing heterocyclic compounds benzothiopyrans or thiochromones stand out as having promising biological activities due to their structural relationship with chromones (benzopyrans), which are widely known as privileged scaffolds in medicinal chemistry. In this work, we report the synthesis of 35 thiochromone derivatives and the in vitro antileishmanial and cytotoxic activities. Compou...

Human leishmaniasis covers a broad spectrum of clinical manifestations ranging from self-healing cutaneous leishmaniasis to severe and lethal visceral leishmaniasis caused among other species by Leishmania major or Leishmania donovani, respectively. Some drug candidates are in clinical trials to substitute current therapies, which are facing emerging drug-resistance accompanied with serious sid...