Novel Scaffolds for Leishmania infantum Trypanothione Reductase Inhibitors Derived from Brazilian Natural Products Biodiversity

Abstract

Background: Leishmania infantum causes the most lethal form of Leishmaniasis: Visceral leishmaniasis. Current therapy for this disease is related to the development of drug-resistant species and toxicity. Trypanothione Reductase (LiTR), a validated target for the drug discovery process, is involved with parasites' thiol-redox metabolism. Methods: In this study, through Virtual Screening employing two distinct Natural Products Brazilian databases, we aimed to identify novel inhibitor scaffolds against LiTR. Results: Thus, the “top 10” LiTR-ligand energies have been selected and their interaction profiles into LiTR sites through the AuPosSOM server have been verified. Finally, Pred-hERG, Aggregator Advisor, FAF-DRUGS, pkCSM and DataWarrior were employed and their results allowed us to evaluate, respectively, the cardiotoxicity, aggregation capacity, presence of false-positive compounds (PAINS) and their toxicities. Conclusion: Three molecules that overcame the in silico pharmacokinetic analysis and have a good interaction with LiTR, were chosen to use in vitro assays hoping that our computational results reported here would aid the development of new anti-leishmanial compounds.