Combination With Tomatidine Improves the Potency of Posaconazole Against Trypanosoma cruzi
Azoles such as posaconazole (Posa) are highly potent against . However, when tested in chronic Chagas disease patients, a high rate of relapse after Posa treatment was observed. It appears that inhibition of cytochrome CYP51, the target of azoles, does not deliver sterile cure in monotherapy. Lookin...
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| Published in: | Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology Vol. 11; p. 617917 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Switzerland
Frontiers Media S.A
04-03-2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Azoles such as posaconazole (Posa) are highly potent against
. However, when tested in chronic Chagas disease patients, a high rate of relapse after Posa treatment was observed. It appears that inhibition of
cytochrome CYP51, the target of azoles, does not deliver sterile cure in monotherapy. Looking for suitable combination partners of azoles, we have selected a set of inhibitors of sterol and sphingolipid biosynthetic enzymes. A small-scale phenotypic screening was conducted
against the proliferative forms of
, extracellular epimastigotes and intracellular amastigotes. Against the intracellular, clinically relevant forms, four out of 15 tested compounds presented higher or equal activity as benznidazole (Bz), with EC
values ≤2.2 μM. Ro48-8071, an inhibitor of lanosterol synthase (ERG7), and the steroidal alkaloid tomatidine (TH), an inhibitor of C-24 sterol methyltransferase (ERG6), exhibited the highest potency and selectivity indices (SI = 12 and 115, respectively). Both were directed to combinatory assays using fixed-ratio protocols with Posa, Bz, and fexinidazole. The combination of TH with Posa displayed a synergistic profile against amastigotes, with a mean ΣFICI value of 0.2.
assays using an acute mouse model of
infection demonstrated lack of antiparasitic activity of TH alone in doses ranging from 0.5 to 5 mg/kg. As observed
, the best combo proportion
was the ratio 3 TH:1 Posa. The combination of Posa at 1.25 mpk plus TH at 3.75 mpk displayed suppression of peak parasitemia of 80% and a survival rate of 60% in the acute infection model, as compared to 20% survival for Posa at 1.25 mpk alone and 40% for Posa at 10 mpk alone. These initial results indicate a potential for the combination of posaconazole with tomatidine against
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| Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 This article was submitted to Parasite and Host, a section of the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology Reviewed by: Gildardo Rivera, Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), Mexico; Emmanuel Oluwadare Balogun, Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria Edited by: Ghulam Jeelani, The University of Tokyo, Japan |
| ISSN: | 2235-2988 2235-2988 |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fcimb.2021.617917 |