Translational challenges of animal models in Chagas disease drug development: a review.

Chagas disease, or American trypanosomiasis, caused by Trypanosoma cruzi parasite infection is endemic in Latin America and presents an increasing clinical challenge due to migrating populations. Despite being first identified over a century ago, only two drugs are available for its treatment, and recent outcomes from the first clinical trials in 40 years were lackluster. There is a critical need to develop new drugs to treat Chagas disease. This requires a better understanding of the progression of parasite infection, and standardization of animal models designed for Chagas disease drug discovery. Such measures would improve comparison of generated data and the predictability of test hypotheses and models designed for translation to human disease. Existing animal models address both disease pathology and treatment efficacy. Available models have limited predictive value for the preclinical evaluation of novel therapies and need to more confidently predict the efficacy of new drug candidates in clinical trials. This review highlights the overall lack of standardized methodology and assessment tools, which has hampered the development of efficacious compounds to treat Chagas disease. We provide an overview of animal models for Chagas disease, and propose steps that could be undertaken to reduce variability and improve predictability of drug candidate efficacy. New technological developments and tools may contribute to a much needed boost in the drug discovery process.

Analysis of the thermal and pH stability of human respiratory syncytial virus.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) was studied as a function of pH (3-8) and temperature (10-85 degrees C) by fluorescence, circular dichroism, and high-resolution second-derivative absorbance spectroscopies, as well as dynamic light scattering and optical density as a measurement of viral aggregation. The results indicate that the secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structures of RSV are both pH and temperature labile. Derivative ultraviolet absorbance and fluorescence spectroscopy (intrinsic and extrinsic) analyses suggest that the stability of tertiary structure of RSV proteins is maximized near neutral pH. In agreement with these results, the secondary structure of RSV polypeptides seems to be more stable at pH 7-8, as evaluated by circular dichroism spectroscopy. The integrity of the viral particles studied by turbidity and dynamic light scattering also revealed that RSV is more thermally stable near neutral pH and particularly prone to aggregation below pH 6. By combination of the spectroscopic data employing a multidimensional eigenvector phase space approach, an empirical phase diagram for RSV was constructed. The pharmaceutical utility of this approach and the optimal formulation conditions are discussed.