“…Preliminary structure-activity relationships with the Leishmania MDR line have allowed the rational design of a flavonoid derivative meeting all of the requirements reported to increase interaction with the cytosolic NBDs of LtrMDR1, especially (i) ring B connected to position 2 of ring C (7, 34), (ii) oxidized 2,3 bond of ring C (34, 37) (interestingly, reduction of this 2,3 double bond of similar flavonoids also resulted in a decreased competitive inhibition of H Ï© ,K Ï© -ATPase with respect to ATP [28]), (iii) a monolignol unit adjacent to ring B (37), (iv) hydroxyl groups at position 3 of ring C and position 5 of ring A (34) (this hydroxyl group also favored ATP mimetism [12,43] and competitive inhibition of HÏ©,KÏ©-ATPase with respect to ATP [28]), and (v) a hydrophobic substitution at position 8 of ring A with 1,1-dimethylallyl, as deduced when comparing different prenyl substitutions (1,1-dimethylallyl ÏŸ prenylation ÏŸ geranylation) at different positions of ring A (position 8 ÏŸ position 6) (37). The resulting compound, 8-(1,1-DMA)-DHS, was hemisynthesized starting from the therapeutic agent silybin (M.M., D.B., et al, unpublished data), which explains the additional OH at position 7 of ring A, known not to affect the interaction with the NBDs (7,34), and its structure is show in Fig.…”