Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Review Article | OPEN ACCESS

Antiprotozoal Activity of α,β-Unsaturated δ-Lactones: Promising Compounds for the Development of New Therapeutic Alternatives

Cardona G Wilson , Saez V Jairo

Instituto de QuÃmica, QuÃmica de Plantas Colombianas, Universidad de Antioquia, A.A 1226, MedellÃn, Colombia;

For correspondence:- Cardona Wilson Email: wcardona@matematicas.udea.edu.co Tel:002289032990

Received: 24 March 2011 Accepted: 22 August 2011 Published: 23 October 2011

Citation: Wilson CG, Jairo SV. Antiprotozoal Activity of α,β-Unsaturated δ-Lactones: Promising Compounds for the Development of New Therapeutic Alternatives. Trop J Pharm Res 2011; 10(5):671-680 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v10i5.17

© 2011 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

The parasite resistance and side effects of drugs used to treat protozoal diseases have led to the search for new therapies, both natural and synthetic. Studies have shown that various α,β-unsaturated δ-lactones displayed high antiprotozoal activity and thus are promising compounds for new drug discovery and development. These compounds and their activity are examined in this review.

Keywords: Lactones, Pyrones, Antiparasitic, Antiprotozoal, Leishmania, Malaria, Chagas, Plasmodium falciparum, Tripanosoma cruzi