Planejamento racional de novos agentes quimioterápicos: Identificação e estudos cinéticos de novos inibidores da gliceraldeído-3-fosfato desidrogenase glicossomal de Trypanosoma cruzi

Abstract

Parasitic diseases are a major global cause of illness, long-term disability, and death, with severe socioeconomic consequences for millions of people worldwide. In Latin America, nearly one fourth of the population is infected by Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas' disease. The limited existing drug therapies suffer from a combination of drawbacks including poor efficacy, resistance and serious side effects. Therefore, there is an urgent need for new drugs that can overcome resistance and are safe and effective for use in human. The crucial dependence on glycolysis as a source of energy makes the glycolytic parasite enzymes promising targets for drug design. In this context, the enzyme glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) was identified as attractive targets for drug design. The development of standard enzymatic assays combined with extensive biological screening was the aim of this work and it has been contributing for the identification of novel GAPDH inhibitors. These compounds belong to several chemical classes from different sources, including organic synthesis, inorganic complexes and natural products. In addition, a virtual screening approach was applied in a focused database, previously filtered by drug-like properties, in order to identify new hits. This strategy resulted in the discovery of a novel scaffold with significant inhibitory activity against T. cruzi GAPDH. Kinetic and inhibition assays were conducted to shed light on the mechanism of action of the promising inhibitors.