Avaliação da atividade antiplasmodial de análogos da cloroquina

Abstract

Malaria is caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium and is responsible for 250 million cases and 1 million deaths annually. One of the main obstacles for the disease control is the development of resistance by the parasite to the commonly used antimalarials, what makes the research for new ones urgent. In this context, chloroquine analogs attached to 6-mercaptopurine and to alkyl-amines and platinum complexes were evaluated for their antimalarial activity using the 4-day suppressive test described by Peters which was carried out in mice infected with Plasmodium berghei NK65. These analogs exhibited high values of parasitemia suppression, which ranged from 60% to 94% in comparison to untreated control. Considering the immune suppressor role of purine derivates, the chloroquine analog attached to 6-mercaptopurine MPQUI was evaluated for immunological aspects (specific leukocytes count, TNF-α and IL-10 measurements in sera of mice), revealing no interference in the immune response considering these parameters. Therefore, these analogs may be objects of further research, aiming at new antimalarials, since they were shown to be promising and did not influence the immune response in the parameters analyzed.