Compounds with multistage antimalarial potential: evaluation of activity against Plasmodium falciparum in vitro

Abstract

Malaria is still a major health problem in tropical and subtropical countries of the world, causing 400,000 deaths annually. Worldwide 3.2 billion people are at risk of infection, as well as about 121 million cases and 429.000 deaths are due to the parasite. Currently, the central strategy in malaria control is based on treatment. Resistance to antimalarials is an obstacle in the fight against malaria, resulting in new outbreaks of the disease due to cross-resistance, that is, when resistance is acquired to a particular drug, it can confer resistance to drugs with similar mechanism of action, which justifies the search for new antimalarials. Integrating bioinformatics, chemoinformatics, chemogenomics and experimental evaluation tools increase the chances of success in the development of drug candidates. As they are complementary, these tools used together increase the level of information generated, enriching the knowledge directed towards the development process of new compounds with potential antimalarial activity. In this sense, this work proposes the in vitro evaluation of the activity of selected compounds against Plasmodium falciparum, the etiological agent of one of the most lethal parasitological diseases in the world. (AU)