Article
Efficacy of Spironolactone treatment in murine models of Cutaneous and Visceral Leishmaniasis
Registro en:
ANDRADE NETO, Valter Viana et al. Efficacy of Spironolactone Treatment in Murine Models of Cutaneous and Visceral Leishmaniasis. Front. Pharmacol., v. 12, Article 636265, 7p, Apr. 2021.
1663-9812
10.3389/fphar.2021.636265
Autor
Andrade Neto, Valter Viana
Pacheco, Juliana da Silva
Inácio, Job Domingos
Amaral, Elmo Eduardo Almeida
Santos, Eduardo Caio Torres
Cunha Junior, Edezio Ferreira
Resumen
Translational studies involving the reuse and association of drugs are approaches that
can result in higher success rates in the discovery and development of drugs for serious
public health problems, including leishmaniasis. If we consider the number of
pathogenic species in relation to therapeutic options, this arsenal is still small, and
each drug possesses a disadvantage in terms of toxicity, efficacy, price, or treatment
regimen. In the search for new drugs, we performed a drug screening of L.
amazonensis promastigotes and intracellular amastigotes of fifty available drugs
belonging to several classes according to their pharmacophoric group.
Spironolactone, a potassium-sparing diuretic, proved to be the most promising
drug candidate. After demonstrating the in vitro antileishmanial activity, we
evaluated the efficacy on a murine experimental model with L. amazonensis and L.
infantum. The treatment controlled the cutaneous lesion and reduced the parasite
burden of L. amazonensis significantly, as effectively as meglumine antimoniate. The
treatment of experimental visceral leishmaniasis was effective in reducing the parasite
load on the main affected organs (spleen and liver) via high doses of spironolactone.
The association between spironolactone and meglumine antimoniate promoted better
control of the parasite load in the spleen and liver compared to the group treated with
meglumine antimoniate alone. These results reveal a possible benefit of the concomitant use
of spironolactone and meglumine antimoniate that should be studied more in depth for the
future possibility of repositioning for leishmaniasis co-therapy.