In vivo activity of the sesquiterpene lactone estafietin on a murine model of Chagas´disease

ELSO O; SANCHEZ ALBERTI A; CABRAL M; CERNY N; IGLESIAS C; SÜLSEN V; BIVONA A; BORGO J; MALCHIODI E

Rio de Janeiro

Congreso; 7th Brazilian Conference on Natural Products; 2019

Sociedade Brasileira de Quimica- Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

Chagas disease is a parasitosis caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. It is considered a neglected disease and it affects almost 8 million people worldwide, mostly in Latin America (1).Natural products play an important role in the discovery and development of new drugs and many natural compounds are used in current chemotherapy. Estafietin is a sesquiterpene lactone isolated from Stevia alpina Griseb. var. alpina, an endemic plant species from Northern Argentina (2). In a previous work of our group, estafietin demonstrated promissory in vitro activity and selectivity against T. cruzi trypomastigotes and amastigotes (3). Taking into account our results, the objective of this work was to assess the in vivo effect of estafietin in a murine model of acute Chagas? disease.Inbred Balb/c mice were infected with 3x105 T. cruzi trypomastigotes (K98 strain) by the intraperitoneal route. Mice were divided in groups and treated with benznidazole and estafietin.Drugs were administered by the intraperitoneal route (1 mg/kg of body weight/day) from days 11 to 15 post infection. Parasitemia was measured weekly by counting blood parasites in a Neubauer Chamber.Estafietin exerted significant in vivo trypanocidal activity. The treatment with the sesquiterpene lactone reduced parasitemia about 6-fold within 48 days post infection (Fig 1 and 2). The area under the curve was 5.9 (*p