Leishmanicidal compounds, Fachbücher

Leishmania parasites are responsible for a series of human diseases known as leishmaniasis which are classified by the WHO as a major tropical disease. Current chemotherapy available for treatment is expensive and highly toxic and suffers from growing resistance in endemic areas. Reporter gene expression has now emerged as a new promising tool facilitating antileishmanial drug screening in vitro. In this project two chemical compounds RAPTA EA and RAPTA EAIMI and a plant extract PL-1 were screened for their antileishmanial activity against two Leishmania species; L. tropica and L. mexicana. Amphotericin B was used as a positive control to ensure the reliability of the drug assay and to act as reference for antileishmanial activity. Parasites constitutionally expressing GFP fluorescent protein were used for drug screening. The infection was quantified by the measurement of fluorescence in.