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Totarol as privileged natural product scaffold for antimalarial drug discovery

Malaria is one of the major killer diseases in many countries of southern Asia, South America and Africa. Today over 40% of the world population is at risk from malaria. It is the cause of 300 - 500 million infections and the death of more than 2 million people each year, most of whom are African ch...

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Main Author: Gebregziabher, Mengisteab Bereketeab
Other Authors: Chibale, Kelly
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Chemistry 2023
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access_status_str Open Access
author Gebregziabher, Mengisteab Bereketeab
author2 Chibale, Kelly
author_browse Chibale, Kelly
Gebregziabher, Mengisteab Bereketeab
author_facet Chibale, Kelly
Gebregziabher, Mengisteab Bereketeab
author_sort Gebregziabher, Mengisteab Bereketeab
collection Thesis
description Malaria is one of the major killer diseases in many countries of southern Asia, South America and Africa. Today over 40% of the world population is at risk from malaria. It is the cause of 300 - 500 million infections and the death of more than 2 million people each year, most of whom are African children. Chloroquine has been the mainstream of malaria chemotherapy for nearly 60 years, but widespread resistance now limits its usefulness. A continuous effort to find alternative antimalarials to this drug has led to the discovery of other effective antimalarials of different types, such as aminoquinolines, artemisinins and nucleic acid inhibitors. However, the emergence of multi-drug resistant strains of the malaria parasite has caused a marked increase in malaria related deaths, and there is a continuous need to develop other new antimalarials. Natural products play an important role in the antimalarial drug discovery process. Quinine and derivatives of artemisinin, the two most important drugs available to treat sever falciparwn malaria, owe their origin to plants. Furthermore, several effective antimalarials have been synthesized using quinine as a model compound (e.g., aminoquinoline antimalarials) or are results of relatively simple chemical modifications on the parent natural products (e.g., artemisinin). In this thesis, the natural product scaffold “totarol", which possesses inherent antiplasmodial activity, was used to design and investigate the antiplasmodial activity of three different compound classes namely: Mannich bases, aminoalcohols and semicarbason derivatives. The aim was to incorporate important drug fragments into a natural product scaffold with intrinsic antiplasmodial activity, possibly leading to the discovery of new totarol based antimalarials. In the first class of compounds, a series of novel Mannich base derivatives of totarol have been designed and synthesized to mimic the known Mannich base antimalarials, such as amodiaquine, amopyroquine and other functionally related antimalarials. These compounds differed from each other in the nature of their amino methyl side chain which was varied to include different structural requirements. It was found that the secondary amine Mannich bases possessed better antiplasmodial activity against chloroquine sensitive strains of the parasite than the tertiary amine Mannich bases. However, none of the synthesized compounds were found to be as active as the parent compound (totarol). Based on the preliminary biological evaluations of the synthesized Mannich base derivatives, only selected primary amine derived /f-amino alcohols were synthesized in the second class of antimalarials. However, none of the synthesized compounds were found to possess significant antiplasmodial activity. This was consistent with previous findings whereby the presence of protonatable nitrogen at the beta position could be a necessary structural feature for high antiplasmodial activity with totarol-dcrived amino alcohols. The semicarbazone derivative of totarol also did not show any antiplasmodial activity. Furthermore, none of the 2-isopropylphenol derived Mannich bases showed significant antiplasmodial activity, suggesting the impo1iance of the diterpenoid backbone of totaro, in its inherent antiplasmodial activity.
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license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2023
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/38259 Totarol as privileged natural product scaffold for antimalarial drug discovery Gebregziabher, Mengisteab Bereketeab Chibale, Kelly Smith, Peter Pharmacology Malaria is one of the major killer diseases in many countries of southern Asia, South America and Africa. Today over 40% of the world population is at risk from malaria. It is the cause of 300 - 500 million infections and the death of more than 2 million people each year, most of whom are African children. Chloroquine has been the mainstream of malaria chemotherapy for nearly 60 years, but widespread resistance now limits its usefulness. A continuous effort to find alternative antimalarials to this drug has led to the discovery of other effective antimalarials of different types, such as aminoquinolines, artemisinins and nucleic acid inhibitors. However, the emergence of multi-drug resistant strains of the malaria parasite has caused a marked increase in malaria related deaths, and there is a continuous need to develop other new antimalarials. Natural products play an important role in the antimalarial drug discovery process. Quinine and derivatives of artemisinin, the two most important drugs available to treat sever falciparwn malaria, owe their origin to plants. Furthermore, several effective antimalarials have been synthesized using quinine as a model compound (e.g., aminoquinoline antimalarials) or are results of relatively simple chemical modifications on the parent natural products (e.g., artemisinin). In this thesis, the natural product scaffold “totarol", which possesses inherent antiplasmodial activity, was used to design and investigate the antiplasmodial activity of three different compound classes namely: Mannich bases, aminoalcohols and semicarbason derivatives. The aim was to incorporate important drug fragments into a natural product scaffold with intrinsic antiplasmodial activity, possibly leading to the discovery of new totarol based antimalarials. In the first class of compounds, a series of novel Mannich base derivatives of totarol have been designed and synthesized to mimic the known Mannich base antimalarials, such as amodiaquine, amopyroquine and other functionally related antimalarials. These compounds differed from each other in the nature of their amino methyl side chain which was varied to include different structural requirements. It was found that the secondary amine Mannich bases possessed better antiplasmodial activity against chloroquine sensitive strains of the parasite than the tertiary amine Mannich bases. However, none of the synthesized compounds were found to be as active as the parent compound (totarol). Based on the preliminary biological evaluations of the synthesized Mannich base derivatives, only selected primary amine derived /f-amino alcohols were synthesized in the second class of antimalarials. However, none of the synthesized compounds were found to possess significant antiplasmodial activity. This was consistent with previous findings whereby the presence of protonatable nitrogen at the beta position could be a necessary structural feature for high antiplasmodial activity with totarol-dcrived amino alcohols. The semicarbazone derivative of totarol also did not show any antiplasmodial activity. Furthermore, none of the 2-isopropylphenol derived Mannich bases showed significant antiplasmodial activity, suggesting the impo1iance of the diterpenoid backbone of totaro, in its inherent antiplasmodial activity. 2023-08-22T11:50:28Z 2023-08-22T11:50:28Z 2007 2023-08-22T11:50:08Z Master Thesis Masters MSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/38259 eng application/pdf Department of Chemistry Faculty of Science
spellingShingle Pharmacology
Gebregziabher, Mengisteab Bereketeab
Totarol as privileged natural product scaffold for antimalarial drug discovery
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Totarol as privileged natural product scaffold for antimalarial drug discovery
title_full Totarol as privileged natural product scaffold for antimalarial drug discovery
title_fullStr Totarol as privileged natural product scaffold for antimalarial drug discovery
title_full_unstemmed Totarol as privileged natural product scaffold for antimalarial drug discovery
title_short Totarol as privileged natural product scaffold for antimalarial drug discovery
title_sort totarol as privileged natural product scaffold for antimalarial drug discovery
topic Pharmacology
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/38259
work_keys_str_mv AT gebregziabhermengisteabbereketeab totarolasprivilegednaturalproductscaffoldforantimalarialdrugdiscovery