A monospecific polyclonal antibody obtained against a cysteine proteinase isolated from epimastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi was used for the immunocytochemical localization of the protein by electron microscopy and to analyse the role played by cysteine proteinase in the process of T. cruzi-host cell interaction. Cytoplasmic structures that correspond to elements of the endosomal-lysosomal (rese...

Cytotoxicity assays of 24 new 3,5-disubstituted-tetrahydro-2H-1,3,5-thiadiazin-2-thione derivatives were performed. The 17 compounds with higher anti-epimastigote activity and lower cytotoxicity were, thereafter, screened against amastigote of Trypanosoma cruzi. Out of these 17 derivatives S-2d was selected to be assayed in vivo, because of its remarkable trypanocidal properties. To determine t...

Earlier studies have demonstrated in A/Sn mice highly susceptible to Chagas' disease protective immunity against lethal Trypanosoma cruzi infection elicited by vaccination with an open reading frame (ORF) expressed by amastigotes. In our experiments, we used this mouse model to search for other amastigote-expressed ORFs with a similar property. Fourteen ORFs previously determined to be expresse...

Hypnophilin and panepoxydone, terpenoids isolated from Lentinus strigosus, have significant inhibitory activity on Trypanosoma cruzi trypanothione reductase (TR). Although they have similar TR inhibitory activity at 10 μg/mL (40.3 μM and 47.6 μM for hypnophilin and panepoxydone, respectively; ~100%), hypnophilin has a slightly greater inhibitory activity (~71%) on T. cruzi amastigote (AMA) grow...

Thirteen aminoalcohols and eight diamines were obtained and tested against Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigotes strains MG, JEM and CL-B5 clone. Some of them were equal or more potent (1.0-6.6 times) than the reference compound nifurtimox. From them, three aminoalcohols and two diamines were selected for amastigotes assays. Compound 5 was as potent as the reference drug nifurtimox against amastigote...

In seeking new drugs for the treatment of the parasitic disease Leishmaniasis, an extensive range of organometallic antimony(v) dicarboxylates of the form [SbR3(O2CR')2] have been synthesised, characterised and evaluated. The organometallic moieties (R) in the complexes vary in being Ph, tolyl (o, m or p), or benzyl. The carboxylates are predominantly substituted benzoates with some compounds i...

Here we report the activity of liposomes comprising egg phosphatidylcholine (PC) and stearylamine (SA) against Leishmania donovani parasites. Both promastigotes and intracellular amastigotes in vitro and in vivo were susceptible to SA-PC liposomes. A single dose of 55 mg of SA-PC liposomes/animal could significantly reduce the hepatic parasite burden by 85 and 68% against recent and established...

In our laboratory, we have developed a model of vaccination in mice with Trypanosoma rangeli, a non-pathogenic parasite that shares many antigens with Trypanosoma cruzi. The vaccinated mice were protected against infection with virulent T. cruzi. The goal of the present work was to study the protective activity of strains of T. rangeli of different origin, with the aim of analysing whether this...