Thiazolidinone-Related Heterocyclic Compounds as Potential Antitrypanosomal Agents

Abstract

Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) and Chagas disease are neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) due to parasite protists from the Trypanosoma genus transmitted by insect vectors. Trypanosomiases affect mostly poor populations in the developing countries, and the development of new antitrypanosomal drugs is underinvested by governments and the pharmaceutical industry. In this chapter, we described the development of 4-thiazolidinone and thiazole derivatives with heterocyclic fragments which exhibit good inhibition of trypanosome growth and might constitute potential candidates for the development of new drugs against try-panosomiasis. Antitrypanosomal design, mainly within structure-based design, led to the synthesis of 5-ene-4-thiazolidinone-3-alkanecarboxylic acids; 2,3-disubsti-tuted 4-thiazolidinones; thiazolidinone-pyrazoline, phenylindole-thiazolidinone, and imidazothiadiazole-thiazolidinone hybrids; as well as 4-thiazolidinone-based fused heterocycles, especially thiopyrano[2,3-d]thiazoles, and non-thiazolidinone compounds-namely, isothiocoumarine derivatives. Moreover, antitrypanosomal 4-thiazolidinones are of special interest in the search for new antimalarial and anti-leishmanial agents. Also many active anticancer agents among the abovementioned 4-thiazolidinones have been discovered.