Atividade de análogos de imidazolidinas e hexahidropirimidinas em espécies de Leishmania associadas à leishmaniose cutânea

Abstract

Leishmaniasis is a disease caused by protozoa of the genus Leishmania, presenting a broad spectrum of clinical manifestations. Nowadays it is present in 98 countries, affecting 12 million people, with 2 million new cases per year. The current treatment is based mainly on administration of pentavalent antimonials which have several problems, including high toxicity, adverse effects and the emergence of resistants strains. Given this fact, there is a clear need for development of new drugs for chemotherapy of these diseases. In this sense, the aims of this study were to assess the activity of imidazolidine and hexahydropyrimidine analogues compounds in different species of Leishmania which are related to cutaneous manifestations. Eighteen compounds were tested, nine imidazolidine analogues and nine hexahydropyrimidine analogues. Initially the tests were performed on promastigote forms of L. amazonensis, L. braziliensis and L. major and murine peritoneal macrophages. The viability of these cells was measured by the MTT colorimetric method. Subsequently, compounds with low toxicity for macrophages and effective antipromastigote activity were selected for the tests in amastigote forms, which methodology was based on Giemsa staining and counting of intracellular parasites. None of compounds showed significant cytotoxic activity for macrophages. Among the imidazolidine analogues, five showed effective activity in promastigotes of Leishmania, with IC50 ranging from 6.18 to 34.93 μM. The compounds 2 and 3 presented the highest activity for antipromastigote and antiamastigote assays, and the compound 2, with a diamine, was the most active. For hexahydropyrimidine analogues, only promastigotes of L. major were sensitive of the compounds, with IC50 ranging from 13.63 to 33.50 μM. Only the compound 14 showed activity on intracellular forms of the parasite. It was observed in the compounds tested a structure-activity relationship as well as differences in sensitivity between Leishmania species and promastigotes and amastigotes forms. The imidazolidine analogues showed a close IC50 for promastigote and amastigote forms, suggesting that their action mechanism action does not depend on immunomodulation of the host cell. Regarding hexahydropyrimidine analogues, the compound 14 did not increasead NO production, indicating that the action mechanism was unlikely to be due to NO modulation. In general, this study showed that the compounds studied have potential leishmanicidal activity, although more research are necessary, in order to identify the mechanism of action of these compounds.