Major triterpenoids from Eucalyptus tereticornis have enhanced beneficial effects in cellular models when mixed with minor compounds present in raw extract.

Obesity is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes mellitus development and is characterized by an abnormal expansion of adipose tissue and low-grade chronic inflammation that contribute to insulin resistance. Although there are multiple treatments, most therapies can produce undesirable side effects and therefore, new and effective treatments with fewer side effects are necessary. Previously, we demonstrated that a natural extract from the leaves of Eucalyptus tereticornis (OBE100) has anti-inflammatory, hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic activities. The major compounds identified in OBE100 were three pentacyclic triterpenoids, ursolic acid, oleanolic acid, and ursolic acid lactone. Triterpenoids have shown multiples biological activities. This current study compared the biological effect produced by OBE100 with five different reconstituted mixtures of these triterpenoids. Different cell lines were used to evaluate cytotoxicity, reactive oxygen species production, inflammatory cytokine expression, glucose uptake induction, leptin and adiponectin expression, and lipid accumulation. OBE100 treatment was the most efficacious and none of the formulated triterpenoid mixtures significantly improved on this. Moreover, OBE100 was less toxic and reduced reactive oxygen species production. Our study showed that the proven beneficial properties of triterpenoids may be enhanced due to the interaction with minor secondary metabolites present in the natural extract improving their anti-inflammatory properties.

Ursolic Acid Lactone Obtained from Eucalyptus tereticornis Increases Glucose Uptake and Reduces Inflammatory Activity and Intracellular Neutral Fat: An In Vitro Study.

Obesity has a strong relationship to insulin resistance and diabetes mellitus, a chronic metabolic disease that alters many physiological functions. Naturally derived drugs have aroused great interest in treating obesity, and triterpenoids are natural compounds with multiple biological activities and antidiabetic mechanisms. Here, we evaluated the bioactivity of ursolic acid lactone (UAL), a lesser-known triterpenoid, obtained from Eucalyptus tereticornis. We used different cell lines to show for the first time that this molecule exhibits anti-inflammatory properties in a macrophage model, increases glucose uptake in insulin-resistant muscle cells, and reduces triglyceride content in hepatocytes and adipocytes. In 3T3-L1 adipocytes, UAL inhibited the expression of genes involved in adipogenesis and lipogenesis, enhanced the expression of genes involved in fat oxidation, and increased AMP-activated protein kinase phosphorylation. The range of biological activities demonstrated in vitro indicates that UAL is a promising molecule for fighting diabetes.

In vitro and in vivo studies of the utility of dimethyl and diethyl carbaporphyrin ketals in treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis.

Carbaporphyrin ketals are porphyrinoid compounds in which a pyrrole ring of a typical porphyrin macrocycle has been replaced by a ketal-substituted indene ring. It was recently demonstrated that these compounds are effective in vitro against Leishmania tarentolae. Their in vitro effectiveness is increased when they are exposed to visible light; they act as photosensitizers capable of mediating the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Following on this evidence, the effectiveness and cytotoxicity of the dimethyl and diethyl carbaporphyrin ketals (CKOMe and CKOEt, respectively) were determined in vitro using pathogenic Leishmania species with and without exposure to visible light (2 and 4 h). The effectiveness against various pathogenic Leishmania species was determined to be in a micromolar range. Additionally, the effect of encapsulating the carbaporphyrin ketals in liposome formulations was tested. Liposomal delivery diminished their toxicity, while the effectiveness was enhanced upon exposure to visible light (photodynamic effect). The cytotoxicity levels for human U937 cells and hamster peritoneal macrophages were in the ranges of 0.3 to 9 µM and 7 to 330 µM, respectively. When tested in vivo, using a hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) model of cutaneous leishmaniasis, CKOMe was active even in the dark, suggesting that the compound, once metabolized in the animal tissue, produces an active ingredient that does not seem to be photosensitive. Reduction in lesion size, histopathologic analyses, and smears confirmed the in vivo effectiveness of the compound, since the parasitic load was diminished without noticeable toxic effects.

In Vivo Wireless Optogenetic Control of Skilled Motor Behavior.

Fine motor skills are essential in everyday life and can be compromised in several nervous system disorders. The acquisition and performance of these tasks require sensory-motor integration and involve precise control of bilateral brain circuits. Implementing unimanual behavioral paradigms in animal models will improve the understanding of the contribution of brain structures, like the striatum, to complex motor behavior as it allows manipulation and recording of neural activity of specific nuclei in control conditions and disease during the performance of the task. Since its creation, optogenetics has been a dominant tool for interrogating the brain by enabling selective and targeted activation or inhibition of neuronal populations. The combination of optogenetics with behavioral assays sheds light on the underlying mechanisms of specific brain functions. Wireless head-mounted systems with miniaturized light-emitting diodes (LEDs) allow remote optogenetic control in an entirely free-moving animal. This avoids the limitations of a wired system being less restrictive for animals' behavior without compromising light emission efficiency. The current protocol combines a wireless optogenetics approach with high-speed videography in a unimanual dexterity task to dissect the contribution of specific neuronal populations to fine motor behavior.

Leishmania tarentolae: utility as an in vitro model for screening of antileishmanial agents.

Primary screens for antileishmanial compounds use Leishmania species pathogenic to humans that must be handled under biosafety conditions that cannot be adopted or guaranteed everywhere. Leishmania tarentolae, a parasite isolated from the gecko Tarentolae annularis, has not been considered pathogenic to humans. Promastigotes of L. tarentolae have been previously used as a eukaryotic expression system for the production of recombinant proteins and in the amplification of genes involved in resistance to antileishmanial drugs. To validate the use of this Leishmania species in the screening of antileishmanial drugs, the sensitivity of axenic and intracellular amastigotes of L. tarentolae was compared to the sensitivity showed by Leishmania species causative of human leishmaniasis. The ability of L. tarentolae to grow as axenic amastigotes is first described while its ability to infect several mammalian cells has been confirmed. L. tarentolae amastigotes offer a suitable model for the in vitro screening of compounds for antileishmanial activity.

Improvement of the green fluorescent protein reporter system in Leishmania spp. for the in vitro and in vivo screening of antileishmanial drugs.

Development of new therapeutic approaches for leishmaniasis treatment requires new high throughput screening methodologies for the antileishmanial activity of the new compounds both in vitro and in vivo. Reporter genes as the GFP have become one of the most promissory and widely used tools for drug screening in several models, since it offers live imaging, high sensibility, specificity and flexibility; additionally, the use of GFP as a reporter gene in screening assays eliminates all the drawbacks presented in conventional assays and also those technical problems found using other reporter genes. The utility of the GFP as a reporter gene in drug screening assays with Leishmania parasites depends on the homogeneity and stability of the GFP transfected strains. Stable expression of the GFP in the Old World Leishmania species has been demonstrated using integration vectors; however, no reports exist yet about the success of this methodology in the New World species. Here we report the generation of New World Leishmania strains expressing the GFP protein from an integration vector, which replaces one copy of the 18S RNA in the chromosome with the GFP coding sequence by homologous recombination. We also prove that the expression of the integrated GFP is stable and homogeneous in the transfected parasites after months in culture without selective pressure or during its use in hamster infection assays. The fluorescent strains are useful for in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo drug screening assays since no considerable variations in virulence or infectivity where seen attributable to the genetic manipulation during both in vitro and in vivo infection experiments. The platform described here for drug testing assays based on the use of stable fluorescent Leishmania strains coupled to flow cytometry and fluorescent microscopy is more sensitive, more specific and faster than conventional assays used normally for the evaluation of compounds with potential antileishmanial activity.

Cutaneous leishmaniasis in the dorsal skin of hamsters: a useful model for the screening of antileishmanial drugs.

Traditionally, hamsters are experimentally inoculated in the snout or the footpad. However in these sites an ulcer not always occurs, measurement of lesion size is a hard procedure and animals show difficulty to eat, breathe and move because of the lesion. In order to optimize the hamster model for cutaneous leishmaniasis, young adult male and female golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) were injected intradermally at the dorsal skin with 1 to 1.5 x l0(7) promastigotes of Leishmania species and progression of subsequent lesions were evaluated for up to 16 weeks post infection. The golden hamster was selected because it is considered the adequate bio-model to evaluate drugs against Leishmania as they are susceptible to infection by different species. Cutaneous infection of hamsters results in chronic but controlled lesions, and a clinical evolution with signs similar to those observed in humans. Therefore, the establishment of the extent of infection by measuring the size of the lesion according to the area of indurations and ulcers is feasible. This approach has proven its versatility and easy management during inoculation, follow up and characterization of typical lesions (ulcers), application of treatments through different ways and obtaining of clinical samples after different treatments. By using this method the quality of animal life regarding locomotion, search for food and water, play and social activities is also preserved.

In vitro and in vivo efficacy of ether lipid edelfosine against Leishmania spp. and SbV-resistant parasites.

BACKGROUND: The leishmaniases are a complex of neglected tropical diseases caused by more than 20 Leishmania parasite species, for which available therapeutic arsenal is scarce and unsatisfactory. Pentavalent antimonials (SbV) are currently the first-line pharmacologic therapy for leishmaniasis worldwide, but resistance to these compounds is increasingly reported. Alkyl-lysophospoholipid analogs (ALPs) constitute a family of compounds with antileishmanial activity, and one of its members, miltefosine, has been approved as the first oral treatment for visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis. However, its clinical use can be challenged by less impressive efficiency in patients infected with some Leishmania species, including L. braziliensis and L. mexicana, and by proneness to develop drug resistance in vitro. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We found that ALPs ranked edelfosine>perifosine>miltefosine>erucylphosphocholine for their antileishmanial activity and capacity to promote apoptosis-like parasitic cell death in promastigote and amastigote forms of distinct Leishmania spp., as assessed by proliferation and flow cytometry assays. Effective antileishmanial ALP concentrations were dependent on both the parasite species and their development stage. Edelfosine accumulated in and killed intracellular Leishmania parasites within macrophages. In vivo antileishmanial activity was demonstrated following oral treatment with edelfosine of mice and hamsters infected with L. major, L. panamensis or L. braziliensis, without any significant side-effect. Edelfosine also killed SbV-resistant Leishmania parasites in in vitro and in vivo assays, and required longer incubation times than miltefosine to generate drug resistance. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our data reveal that edelfosine is the most potent ALP in killing different Leishmania spp., and it is less prone to lead to drug resistance development than miltefosine. Edelfosine is effective in killing Leishmania in culture and within macrophages, as well as in animal models infected with different Leishmania spp. and SbV-resistant parasites. Our results indicate that edelfosine is a promising orally administered antileishmanial drug for clinical evaluation.

Evaluación de la actividad leishmanicida in vitro de extractos de Annona cherimolioides / Assessment of the in vitro leishmanicide activity of Annona cherimolioides extracts

INTRODUCCIÓN: la utilización de nuestra flora permite un acercamiento en la búsqueda de nuevas sustancias con alto nivel de bioactividad característico de la familia Annonaceae, en donde se reportan una serie de metabolitos secundarios muy promisorios para combatir estos patógenos. OBJETIVO: evaluar la actividad leishmanicida sobre amastigotes intracelulares de Leishmania (V.) panamensis y la actividad tóxica en macrófagos humanos y Artemia salina. MÉTODOS: se aplicó cromatografía de columna y cromatografía en capa preparativa para la extracción y el aislamiento de los alcaloides presentes en la corteza de tallo de Annona cherimolioides Triana & Planch. Extractos y fracciones alcaloidales se evaluaron para determinar la actividad leishmanicida por medio de citometría de flujo, además de la actividad citotóxica sobre la línea celular U937 y sobre macrófagos peritoneales de hámster. La actividad citotóxica in vivo fue evaluada sobre Artemia salina. RESULTADOS: se obtuvo un compuesto depurado, en el cual se determinó la presencia de un núcleo aporfínico según resonancia magnética nuclear 1-H y espectrofotometría. No se encontró actividad contra los parásitos de Leishmania. El extracto crudo mostró mayor toxicidad sobre Artemia salina, mientras que el compuesto depurado mostró una citotoxicidad moderada sobre la línea celular U937. CONCLUSIONES: se encontró una actividad citotóxica selectiva contra las células tumorales (línea celular U937), en comparación con la toxicidad observada en células en cultivo primario (no tumorales). Debido a la citotoxicidad mostrada sobre la línea celular U937, no se pudo determinar la concentración efectiva de los extractos contra amastigotes intracelulares, por lo que se hace necesario continuar las evaluaciones en los sistemas in vitro utilizando células no tumorales.

INTRODUCTION: the use of our flora allows a approach to search of new substances with a high level of bioactivity characteristic of the Annonaceae family where it is reported a series of secondary metabolites very promissory to attack these pathogens. OBJECTIVE: to assess the leishmanicidal activity on intracellular amastigotes of Leishmania (V) panamensis and the toxic activity on human macrophages and Artemia salina. METHODS: it was applied the column chromatography and the preparative layer chromatography for extraction and isolation of alkaloids present in the stem bark of Annona cherimolioides Triana & Planch. Alkaloid extracts and fractions were assessed to determine the leishmanicidal activity by flow cytometry as well as cytotoxic activity on the U937 cellular line and on the peritoneal macrophages of hamster. The in vivo cytotoxic activity was assessed on Artemia salina. RESULTS: a purifying compound was obtained in which the presence of an aporphine nucleus was determined by 1-H nuclear magnetic resonance and spectrophotometry. There wasn't activity against the Leishmania parasites. The crude extract showed the highest toxicity on Artemia salina whereas the purifying compound showed a moderate toxicity on the U937 cell line. DISCUSSION: there was a selective cytotoxic activity against tumoral cells (U397 cell line) compared to toxicity seen in the primary culture (non-tumoral). Due to the cytotoxicity showed on the above cell line, it was impossible to determine the effective concentration of extracts against intracellular amastigotes, thus it is necessary to continue the assessments of in vitro systems using non-tumoral cells.

SÍNTESIS Y ACTIVIDADES LEISHMANICIDA Y CITOTÓXICA in vitro DE ANÁLOGOS 2-ARILQUINOLINAS / SYNTHESIS AND in vitro LEISHMANICIDAL AND CYTOTOXIC ACTIVITIES OF 2-STYRYLQUINOLINES ANALOGS

Actualmente la quimioterapia de la leishmaniasis es promisoria, sin embargo aun no se dispone de un medicamento adecuado. Varias quinolinas sustituidas han presentado actividad in vitro contra agentes causales de leishmaniasis cutánea, leishmaniasis visceral, tripanosomiasis africana y enfermedad de Chagas. En este trabajo se sintetizan seis 2-arilquinolinas derivadas de la galipeina mediante condensación de Perkin a partir de quinaldina y aldehídos aromáticos. La actividad leishmanicida se evalúa en amastigotes axénicos y la actividad citotóxica en células U-937. Todos los compuestos muestran ser activos contra leishmania panamensis pero también contra células mamíferas. Los compuestos estirilquinolinas 2-[(E)-2-(2,5-dimetoxifenil)etenil]quinolina (1), 2-[(E)-2-(2,3-dimetoxifenil)etenil]quinolina (2) y N-{4-[(E)-2-quinolin-2-iletenil]fenil}acetamida (3) son mas activos sobre amastigotes axénicos (CE50 = 3,7; 4,5 y 19,1μg/mL) e intracelulares (CE50 = 1,4; 1,8 y 1,7μg/mL), en comparación con los derivados hidrogenados 2-[2-(2,5-dimetoxifenil)etil]quinolina (1a), 2-[2-(2,3-dimetoxifenil)etil]quinolina (2a) y N-[4-(2-quinolin-2-iletil)fenil]acetamida (3a) (CE50= 31,1; 23,6 y 59,3μg/mL). Todos los compuestos muestran también actividad contra células U-937 con CE50 de 3,7; 6,2 y 4,5μg/mL para las estirilquinolinas 1, 2 y 3, respectivamente y CE50 de 16,0; 12,9 y 20,2μg/mL para los derivados hidrogenados 1a, 2a y 3a, respectivamente. Aunque el proceso de hidrogenación produjo una disminución tanto de la actividad leishmanicida como de la actividad citotóxica, la actividad leishmanicida mostrada por los compuestos de tipo 2-estirilquinolinas les confiere un potencial como moléculas candidatas para el desarrollo de compuestos anti-leishmania.

The search of new treatments for leishmaniasis is an active task nowadays, since there is a lack of non-toxic, cheap and non-resistant medication. In the literature several quinolines have shown in vitro activity against agents of cutaneous leishmaniasis, visceral leishmaniasis, African trypanosomiasis and Chagas diseases. Six 2-styrylquinolines derived from galipeine were synthesized by Perkin condensation of quinaldine with aromatic aldehydes. Leishmanicidal activity was estimated for leishmania panamensis at the amastigote form and cytotoxic activity against U-937 cells. All compounds showed activity against both L. panamensis and U-937 cells. (E)-2-(2,5-dimethoxyphenyl)ethenyl)quinoline (1), (E)-2-(2,3-dimethoxyphenyl)ethenyl)quinoline (2) and (E)-N-[4-(2-quinolin-2-yl-ethenyl)phenyl]acetamide (3) were more active against axenic (EC50= 3.7, 4.5 and 19.1μg/mL) and intracellular amastigotes (EC50= 1.4, 1.8 and 1.7μg/ml, respectively), in comparison with hydrogenated derivatives 2-[2-(2,5-dimethoxyphenyl)ethyl]quinoline (1a), 2-[2-(2,3-dimethoxyphenyl)ethyl]quinoline (2a) and N-[4-(2-quinolin-2-ylethyl)phenyl]acetamide (3a) (CE50= 31.1, 23.6 and 59.3μg/mL, respectively). All compounds were also active against the U-937 cells. Styrylquinolines 1, 2 and 3 showed a LC50 of 3.7, 6.2 and 4.5μg/mL, respectively and the hydrogenated derivatives 1a, 2a and 3a showed a LC50 of 16.0. 12.9 and 20.2μg/mL, respectively. Although hydrogenation reduced the leishmanicidal and cytotoxic activities, the activity showed against leishmania parasites suggests this compound series has potential as drug candidates for the treatment of leishmaniasis.

Efecto de hidrazonas sobre amastigotes intracelulares de Leishmania panamensis y una proteasa de cisteína parasitaria / Effect of hydrazones against intracellular amastigotes of Leishmania panamensis and a parasitic cystein protease

En este trabajo se describe la síntesis de hidrazonas derivadas de cromano, tiocromano, alquil y aril hidrazonas, su actividad leishmanicida y su efecto sobre proteasas de cisteína de L. (V) panamensis. Se sintetizan feniltiocromanos y bencil y naftil derivados; solamente las fenilhidrazonas muestran alguna actividad sobre amastigotes de Leishmania (V) panamensis. No se observa ningún efecto sobre una proteasa de cisteína del parásito lo que sugiere un mecanismo de acción diferente a la inhibición de esta enzima