Brain-eating amoebae can cause harmful forms of encephalitis, and more than 95% of people who develop these rare but devastating infections die. Now researchers have designed new compounds that show promise as treatments.
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‘New drug leads are effective against a wide spectrum of microorganisms including bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites. And, attaching silver nanoparticles to the derivatives enhanced the antimicrobial activity.’
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However, these drugs generally lack specificity and can have toxic effects at high levels. To make progress toward a single drug, Ruqaiyyah Siddiqui and colleagues turned to quinazolinones. These compounds are effective against a wide spectrum of human foes, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites and cancer, but they had never been tested against brain-eating amoebae.Read More..
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The researchers synthesized 34 new quinazolinone derivatives and studied their effects on N. fowleri and B. mandrillaris. Some of the new compounds were effective at killing the microorganisms and limiting the harm the pathogens could do to human cells in a Petri dish.
In some cases, attaching silver nanoparticles to the derivatives enhanced that activity. The most effective compounds contained chlorine, methyl or methoxy groups, and their toxicity for human cells was low. The researchers say their results show that quinazolinones are good candidates for drug development studies.
Source-Eurekalert