Antischistosomal Activity of Pyrido[1,2-a]benzimidazole Derivatives and Correlation with Inhibition of β-Hematin Formation

Stepping Up Medicinal Chemistry Capabilities in Sub-Saharan Africa: Perspectives from Early Career African Drug Discovery Researchers

Despite Africa's progress in basic and clinical sciences, gaps persist in its translational capacities, especially medicinal chemistry, a cornerstone of early stage drug discovery. Drawing on experiences as early career researchers and alumni of Africa's premier holistic drug discovery and development center (H3D), this perspective highlights key successes, challenges, and opportunities in Africa. Major barriers to drug discovery in Africa include limited hit-to-lead and lead optimization programs, insufficient Africa-tailored funding, and educational curricula misaligned with real-world drug discovery. We advocate scaling successful models, integrating drug discovery concepts into educational curricula, and forming strategic partnerships with leading African and international institutions. Africa's progress in drug discovery requires innovative funding mechanisms and resource-sharing frameworks adapted to its unique challenges. Targeted investments, collaborative networks, and reciprocal knowledge exchange are essential for Africa to transition from a consumer of global medical innovations to a leading contributor, addressing local healthcare needs and advancing global health equity.

Benzimidazole analogues active against adult Schistosoma mansoni: SAR analyses, In vivo efficacy in mice, and preliminary mechanistic studies as potential inhibitors of hemozoin formation

For over three decades, praziquantel (PZQ) has been the mainstay chemotherapy for prevention and treatment of schistosomiasis. The excessive use of PZQ, coupled with the lack of advanced drug candidates in the current anti-schistosomiasis drug development pipeline, emphasizes the genuine need for new drugs. In the current work, we investigated the antischistosomal potential of a new series of compounds derived from the privileged benzimidazole scaffold, which exhibited low micromolar IC50 potency in the range of 1.0-2.7 μM against Schistosomamansoni adult worms, in vitro. However, representative compounds showed low in vivo activity. One compound (15) reduced worm burden by 51.9 %, although the reduction was not statistically significant. Furthermore, by invoking inhibition of hemozoin formation, an immutable drug target in Schistosoma adult worms, as a likely contributing mode of action, we observed that the most potent analogues were equally potent inhibitors of β-hematin (synthetic hemozoin) formation in a cell-free assay.

Quinoxaline-based anti-schistosomal compounds have potent anti-plasmodial activity

The human pathogens Plasmodium and Schistosoma are each responsible for over 200 million infections annually, especially in low- and middle-income countries. There is a pressing need for new drug targets for these diseases, driven by emergence of drug-resistance in Plasmodium and an overall dearth of drug targets against Schistosoma. Here, we explored the opportunity for pathogen-hopping by evaluating a series of quinoxaline-based anti-schistosomal compounds for their activity against P. falciparum. We identified compounds with low nanomolar potency against 3D7 and multidrug-resistant strains. In vitro resistance selections using wildtype and mutator P. falciparum lines revealed a low propensity for resistance. Only one of the series, compound 22, yielded resistance mutations, including point mutations in a non-essential putative hydrolase pfqrp1, as well as copy number amplification of a phospholipid-translocating ATPase, pfatp2, a potential target. Notably, independently generated CRISPR-edited mutants in pfqrp1 also showed resistance to compound 22 and a related analogue. Moreover, previous lines with pfatp2 copy number variations were similarly less susceptible to challenge with the new compounds. Finally, we examined whether the predicted hydrolase activity of PfQRP1 underlies its mechanism of resistance, showing that both mutation of the putative catalytic triad and a more severe loss of function mutation elicited resistance. Collectively, we describe a compound series with potent activity against two important pathogens and their potential target in P. falciparum.

Targeting SmCB1: Perspectives and Insights to Design Antischistosomal Drugs

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are prevalent in tropical and subtropical countries, and schistosomiasis is among the most relevant diseases worldwide. In addition, one of the two biggest problems in developing drugs against this disease is related to drug resistance, which promotes the demand to develop new drug candidates for this purpose. Thus, one of the drug targets most explored, Schistosoma mansoni Cathepsin B1 (SmCB1 or Sm31), provides new opportunities in drug development due to its essential functions for the parasite's survival. In this way, here, the latest developments in drug design studies targeting SmCB1 were approached, focusing on the most promising analogs of nitrile, vinyl sulphones, and peptidomimetics. Thus, it was shown that despite being a disease known since ancient times, it remains prevalent throughout the world, with high mortality rates. The therapeutic arsenal of antischistosomal drugs (ASD) consists only of praziquantel, which is widely used for this purpose and has several advantages, such as efficacy and safety. However, it has limitations, such as the impossibility of acting on the immature worm and exploring new targets to overcome these limitations. SmCB1 shows its potential as a cysteine protease with a catalytic triad consisting of Cys100, His270, and Asn290. Thus, design studies of new inhibitors focus on their catalytic mechanism for designing new analogs. In fact, nitrile and sulfonamide analogs show the most significant potential in drug development, showing that these chemical groups can be better exploited in drug discovery against schistosomiasis. We hope this manuscript guides the authors in searching for promising new antischistosomal drugs.

Improving translational power in antischistosomal drug discovery

Schistosomiasis is a poverty-associated tropical disease caused by blood dwelling trematodes that threaten approximately 10% of the world population. Praziquantel, the sole drug currently available for treatment, is insufficient to eliminate the disease and the clinical drug development pipeline is empty. Here, we review the characteristics of the patent Schistosoma mansoni mouse model used for in vivo antischistosomal drug discovery, highlighting differences in the experimental set-up across research groups and their potential influence on experimental results. We explore the pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic relationship of selected drug candidates, showcasing opportunities to improve the drug profile to accelerate the transition from the early drug discovery phase to new clinical candidates.

Simple inorganic base promoted polycyclic construction using mucohalic acid as a C3 synthon: synthesis and AIE probe application of benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyridines

Using mucohalic acid as C3 synthon via a transition metal-free multicomponent reaction, an eco-friendly protocol to synthesize C1-functionalized benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyridines which can be applied as fluorescence probe for picric acid is described.

Simple inorganic base promoted C-N and C-C formation: synthesis of benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyridines as functional AIEgens used for detecting picric acid

Metal-free catalyzed intermolecular tandem Michael addition/cyclization has been developed for the synthesis of benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyridines from α-bromocinnamaldehyde and 2-substituted benzimidazoles. The reaction promoted by a simple inorganic base displays moderate to good yields and good functional group tolerance. The optical properties of some typical products have been investigated. We found that, due to the presence of the benzene ring at the C1-position of benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyridines which restricts intramolecular motion, as a new type of aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogen (AIEgen), they show very good solid-state fluorescence with quantum yields up to 88.80%. Importantly, the AIE performance of compound 3b can be useful to detect the nitroaromatic explosive picric acid (PA) with a detection limit and quenching constant of 42.5 nM and 7.27 × 10⁴ M^-M, respectively.

Expanding the Activity Profile of Pyrido[1,2-a]benzimidazoles: Synthesis and Evaluation of Novel N1-1-Phenylethanamine Derivatives against Schistosoma mansoni

Praziquantel is the only widely available drug to treat schistosomiasis. With very few candidates currently in the drug development pipeline, there is an urgent need to discover and develop novel antischistosomal drugs. In this regard, the pyrido[1,2-a]benzimidazole (PBI) scaffold has emerged as a promising chemotype in hit-to-lead efforts. Here, we report a novel series of antischistosomal PBIs with potent in vitro activity (IC₅₀ values of 0.08-1.43 μM) against Schistosoma mansoni newly transformed schistosomula and adult worms. Moreover, the current PBIs demonstrated good hepatic microsomal stability (>70% of drug remaining after 30 min) and were nontoxic to the Chinese hamster ovarian and human liver HepG2 cells, though toxicity (selectivity index, SI < 10) against the rat L6 myoblast cell line was observed. The compounds showed a small therapeutic window but were efficacious in vivo, exhibiting moderate to high worm burden reductions of 35.8-89.6% in S. mansoni-infected mice.

Chemotherapy for human schistosomiasis: how far have we come? What's new? Where do we go from here?

Globally, schistosomiasis threatens more than 700 million lives, mostly children, in poor localities of tropical and sub-tropical areas with morbidity due to acute and chronic pathological manifestations of the disease. After a century since the first antimonial-based drugs were introduced to treat the disease, anti-schistosomiasis drug development is again at a bottleneck with only one drug, praziquantel, available for treatment purposes. This review focuses on promising chemotypes as potential starting points in a drug discovery effort to meet the urgent need for new schistosomicides.

Antimalarial Pyrido[1,2- a]benzimidazole Derivatives with Mannich Base Side Chains: Synthesis, Pharmacological Evaluation, and Reactive Metabolite Trapping Studies

A novel series of pyrido[1,2- a]benzimidazoles bearing Mannich base side chains and their metabolites were synthesized and evaluated for in vitro antiplasmodium activity, microsomal metabolic stability, reactive metabolite (RM) formation, and in vivo antimalarial efficacy in a mouse model. Oral administration of one of the derivatives at 4 × 50 mg/kg reduced parasitemia by 95% in Plasmodium berghei-infected mice, with a mean survival period of 16 days post-treatment. The in vivo efficacy of these derivatives is likely a consequence of their active metabolites, two of which showed potent in vitro antiplasmodium activity against chloroquine-sensitive and multidrug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum ( P. falciparum) strains. Rapid metabolism was observed for all the analogues with <40% of parent compound remaining after 30 min of incubation in liver microsomes. RM trapping studies detected glutathione adducts only in derivatives bearing 4-aminophenol moiety, with fragmentation signatures showing that this conjugation occurred on the phenyl ring of the Mannich base side chain. As with amodiaquine (AQ), interchanging the positions of the 4-hydroxyl and Mannich base side group or substituting the 4-hydroxyl with fluorine appeared to block bioactivation of the AQ-like derivatives though at the expense of antiplasmodium activity, which was significantly lowered.

Structure-Activity Relationship and in Vitro Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion, and Toxicity (ADMET) Studies of N-aryl 3-Trifluoromethyl Pyrido[1,2- a]benzimidazoles That Are Efficacious in a Mouse Model of Schistosomiasis

We have previously reported on the antischistosomal activity of pyrido[1,2- a]benzimidazole (PBI) derivatives. As a follow-up, we designed and prosecuted further structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies that incorporate N-aryl substitutions on the PBI scaffold. Investigations into the in vitro antischistosomal activity against newly transformed schistosomula (NTS) and adult worms revealed several leads with promising potency. Active compounds with a good cytotoxicity profile were tested in vivo whereby 6 and 44 induced noteworthy reduction (62-69%) in the worm load in the Schistosoma mansoni mouse model. Pharmacokinetic analysis on 44 pointed to slow absorption, low volume of distribution, and low plasma clearance indicating the potential of these compounds to achieve a long duration of action. Overall, our work demonstrates that PBI chemotype is a promising scaffold in the discovery of new antischistosomal leads.

Hydrazonophenol, a Food Vacuole-Targeted and Ferriprotoporphyrin IX-Interacting Chemotype Prevents Drug-Resistant Malaria

The rapid emergence of resistance against frontline antimalarial drugs essentially warrants the identification of new-generation antimalarials. Here, we describe the synthesis of ( E)-2-isopropyl-5-methyl-4-((2-(pyridin-4-yl)hydrazono)methyl)phenol (18), which binds ferriprotoporphyrin-IX (Fe^III-PPIX) ( K_d = 33 nM) and offers antimalarial activity against chloroquine-resistant and sensitive strains of Plasmodium falciparum in vitro. Structure-function analysis reveals that compound 18 binds Fe^III-PPIX through the -C═N-NH- moiety and 2-pyridyl substitution at the hydrazine counterpart plays a critical role in antimalarial efficacy. Live cell confocal imaging using a fluorophore-tagged compound confirms its accumulation inside the acidic food vacuole (FV) of P. falciparum. Furthermore, this compound concentration-dependently elevates the pH in FV, implicating a plausible interference with Fe^III-PPIX crystallization (hemozoin formation) by a dual function: increasing the pH and binding free Fe^III-PPIX. Different off-target bioassays reduce the possibility of the promiscuous nature of compound 18. Compound 18 also exhibits potent in vivo antimalarial activity against chloroquine-resistant P. yoelii and P. berghei ANKA (causing cerebral malaria) in mice with negligible toxicity.