showing 6 related works from this author
Antiparasitic Effect of Stilbene and Terphenyl Compounds against Trypanosoma cruzi Parasites
2021
AbstractBackgroundChagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is a potentially life-threatening illness caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. No progress in the treatment of this pathology has been made since Nifurtimox was introduced more than fifty years ago and is considered very aggressive and may cause several adverse effects. Currently, this drug has severe limitations, including high frequency of undesirable side effects and limited efficacy and availability and the research to discover new drugs for the treatment of Chagas disease is imperative. Many drugs available in the market are natural products as found in nature or compounds designed based on the str…
“Click” on PLGA-PEG and hyaluronic acid: Gaining access to anti-leishmanial pentamidine bioconjugates
2017
Pentamidine (Pent), an antiparasitic drug used for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis, has been modified with terminal azide groups and conjugated to two different polymer backbones (PLGA-PEG [PP] copolymer and hyaluronic acid [HA]) armed with alkyne end-groups. The conjugation has been performed by Copper Catalyzed Azido Alkyne Cycloaddition (CuAAC) using CuSO4 /sodium ascorbate as metal source. The novel PP-Pent and HA-Pent bioconjugates are proposed, respectively, as non-targeted and targeted drug delivery systems against Leishmania infections. Moreover, Pent has been encapsulated into PP nanoparticles by the oil-in-water emulsion method, with the aim to compare the biological activ…
Effects of trans-stilbene and terphenyl compounds on different strains of Leishmania and on cytokines production from infected macrophages.
2017
Most of the antileishmanial modern therapies are not satisfactory due to high toxicity or emergence of resistance and high cost of treatment. Previously, we observed that two compounds of a small library of trans-stilbene and terphenyl derivatives, ST18 and TR4, presented the best activity and safety profiles against Leishmania infantum promastigotes and amastigotes. In the present study we evaluated the effects of ST18 and the TR4 in 6 different species of Leishmania and the modifications induced by these two compounds in the production of 8 different cytokines from infected macrophages. We observed that TR4 was potently active in all Leishmania species tested in the study showing a leishm…
Genetic tools discriminate strains of Leishmania infantum isolated from humans and dogs in Sicily, Italy
2020
Background Leishmaniasis is one of the most important vector-borne diseases and it represents a serious world health problem affecting millions of people. High levels of Leishmania infections, affecting both humans and animals, are recognized among Italian regions. Among these, Sicily has one of the highest prevalence of Leishmania infection. Methodology/Principal Findings Seventy-eight Leishmania strains isolated from human and animal samples across Sicily, were analyzed for the polymorphic k26-gene and genotypes were assigned according to the size of the PCR products. A multilocus microsatellite typing (MLMT) approach based on the analysis of 11 independent loci was used to investigate po…
In vitro antileishmanial activity of trans-stilbene and terphenyl compounds
2016
Leishmaniasis are globally widespread parasitic diseases which often leads to death if left untreated. Currently available drugs present different drawbacks, so there is an urgent need to develop new, safe and cost-effective drugs against leishmaniasis. In this study we tested a small library of trans-stilbene and terphenyl derivatives against promastigote, amastigotes and intramacrophage amastigote forms of Leishmania infantum. Two compounds of the series, the trans-stilbene 3 and the terphenyl 11, presented the best activity and safety profiles. Terphenyl 11 showed a leshmanicidal activity higher than pentostam and the ability to induce apoptosis selectively in Leishmania infantum while s…
Exosome secretion by Leishmania infantum modulate the chemotactic behavior and cytokinic expression creating an environment permissive for early infe…
2019
Abstract In recent years, several studies demonstrated the role of exosomes in intercellular communications, several Leishmania species belonging to subgenera Leishmania and Viannia have been demonstrated to release exosomes, and their role in parasite-macrophage interactions and in leishmaniasis development has been investigated. However, the release of exosomes by Leishmania infantum has not been studied so far. The aim of this study was to isolate and characterize L. infantum exosomes, and to investigate the biological activity of these exosomes in macrophage cultures. To this end, exosomes were collected from both amastigote and promastigote L. infantum conditioned medium by ultracentri…