The need to discover and develop new antimalarial therapeutics is severe. The annual mortality attributed to malaria, currently approximately 2.5 million, is increasing due primarily to widespread resistance to currently used drugs. One strategy to identify new treatment alternatives for malaria is to examine libraries of diverse compounds for the possible identification of novel scaffolds. Beginning with libraries of drug or drug-like compounds is an ideal starting point because, in the case of approved drugs, substantial pharmacokinetic and toxicologic data should be available for each compound series. We have employed a high throughput screen of the MicroSource Spectrum and Killer collections, a library of known drugs, bioactive compounds, and natural products. Our screening assay identifies compounds that inhibit growth of Plasmodium falciparum cultured in human erythrocytes. We have identified 36 novel inhibitors of P. falciparum, of which 19 are therapeutics, and five of these drugs exhibit effective 50% inhibitory concentrations within similar ranges to therapeutic serum concentrations for their currently indicated uses: propafenone, thioridazine, chlorprothixene, perhexiline and azlocillin. The findings we report here indicate that this is an effective strategy to identify novel scaffolds and therefore aid in antimalarial drug discovery efforts.

is incorrectly listed as a corresponding author with the asterisk symbol (/) by his name. The symbol next to his name should be an open circle (O) indicating his affiliation with the Department of Pharmaceutics.

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A parallel synthetic strategy to the 9-aminoacridine scaffold of the classical anti-malarial drug quinacrine (2) is presented. The method features a new route to 9-chloroacridines that utilizes triflates of salicylic acid derivatives, which are commercially available in a variety of substitution patterns. The route allows ready variation of the two diversity elements present in this class of molecules: the tricyclic aromatic heterocyclic core, and the disubstituted diamine sidechain. In this study, a library of 175 compounds was designed, although only 93 of the final products had purities acceptable for screening. Impurity was generally due to incomplete removal of 9-acridones (18), a degradation product of the 9-chloroacridine synthetic intermediates. The library was screened against two strains of Plasmodium falciparum, including a model of the drug-resistant parasite, and six novel compounds were found to have IC 50 values in the low nanomolar range.

The substitution effects in the B-ring of 4-hydroxyquinoline on antimalarial activity against drug-resistant parasite strains are investigated. The key steps in the synthesis of libraries (VIII) and (X) consist of and addition-elimination reaction to afford the ene-amine precursor (IV) and the subsequent microwave-assisted cyclization step. Compounds with the shorter side chain, cf. (VIII), are consistently more potent, especially against the drug-resistant W2 strain. The most active compounds possess substituents at either the 6-or 7-position on the quinoline ring. In general, small electron-withdrawing groups yield active substitutions. -(MADRID, P. B.; SHERRILL, J.; LIOU, A. P.; WEISMAN, J. L.; DERISI, J. L.; GUY*, R. K.; Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 15 (2005) 4, 1015-1018; Dep. Pharm. Chem., Sch. Pharm., Univ. Calif., San Francisco, CA 94143, USA; Eng.) -H. Hoennerscheid 25-144

A library of diarylurea IGFR inhibitors was screened for activity against chloroquine-sensitive (3D7) and chloroquine-resistant (K1) strains of Plasmodium falciparum. The 4-aminoquinaldine-derived diarylureas displayed promising antimalarial potency. Further exploration of the B ring of 4-aminoquinaldinyl ureas allowed identification of several quinaldin-4-yl ureas 4{13, 39} and 4{13, 58} sufficiently potent against both 3D7 and K1 strains to qualify as bone fide leads.

Previous data showing that several chloroquine analogues containing an intramolecular hydrogen-bonding motif were potent against multidrug-resistant P. falciparum led to the exploration of the importance of this motif. A series of 116 compounds containing four different alkyl linkers and various aromatic substitutions with hydrogen bond accepting capability was synthesized. The series showed broad potency against the drug-resistant W2 strain of P. falciparum. In particular, a novel series containing variations of the alpha-aminocresol motif gave eight compounds with IC50 values more potent than 5 nM against the W2 strain. Such simple modifications, significantly altering the pKa and sterics of the basic side chain in chloroquine analogues, may prove to be part of a strategy for overcoming the problem of worldwide resistance to affordable antimalarial drugs.