Multifunctional organometallic compounds for the treatment of Chagas disease: Re(I) tricarbonyl compounds with two different bioactive ligands.

Chagas' disease (American Trypanosomiasis) is an ancient and endemic illness in Latin America caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. Although there is an urgent need for more efficient and less toxic chemotherapeutics, no new drugs to treat this disease have entered the clinic in the last decades. Searching for metal-based prospective antichagasic drugs, in this work, multifunctional Re(I) tricarbonyl compounds bearing two different bioactive ligands were designed: a polypyridyl NN derivative of 1,10-phenanthroline and a monodentate azole (Clotrimazole CTZ or Ketoconazol KTZ). Five fac-[Re(CO)3(NN)(CTZ)](PF6) compounds and a fac-[Re(CO)3(NN)(KTZ)](PF6) were synthesized and fully characterized. They showed activity against epimastigotes (IC50 3.48-9.42 µM) and trypomastigotes of T. cruzi (IC50 0.61-2.79 µM) and moderate to good selectivity towards the parasite compared to the VERO mammalian cell model. In order to unravel the mechanism of action of our compounds, two potential targets were experimentally and theoretically studied, namely DNA and one of the enzymes involved in the parasite ergosterol biosynthetic pathway, CYP51 (lanosterol 14-α-demethylase). As hypothesized, the multifunctional compounds shared in vitro a similar mode of action as that disclosed for the single bioactive moieties included in the new chemical entities. Additionally, two relevant physicochemical properties of biological interest in prospective drug development, namely lipophilicity and stability in solution in different media, were determined. The whole set of results demonstrates the potentiality of these Re(I) tricarbonyls as promising candidates for further antitrypanosomal drug development.

Application of microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry in bioanalytical chemistry of bioactive rhenium compounds.

Five newly synthetized fac-Re(I) tricarbonyl compounds were explored as prospective antitrypanosomal agents. The biological activity of the whole series was evaluated preliminarily against the epimastigote form of Trypanosoma cruzi. All compounds showed activity against epimastigotes with IC50 values in the low micromolar range. The most active compound [fac-Re(I)(CO)3(tmp)(CTZ)](PF6), with CTZ = clotrimazole and tmp = 3,4,7,8-tetramethyl-1,10-phenantroline, showed good selectivity towards the parasites and thus was selected to carry out further metallomic studies. For this task, a newly bioanalytical method based on microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry (MP-AES) was developed and validated. The accuracy of the method was ensured by testing a certified reference material. Results of rhenium elemental analysis by MP-AES agreed with the proposed formula of the studied compounds, contributing to the overall validation of the method, which was then applied to evaluate the percentage of rhenium uptaken by the parasites and the association of the compounds with parasite biomacromolecules. Metallomics results showed low total rhenium percentage uptaken by parasites (∼1.2%) and preferential accumulation in the soluble proteins fraction (∼82.8%). Thus, the method based on MP-AES turned out to be an economical and green alternative for metallomics studies involving potential rhenium metallodrugs. Moreover, a comparison against rhenium determination by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ET-AAS) was included.