The in vitro activities of ferrochloroquine, chloroquine, quinine, mefloquine, halofantrine, amodiaquine, primaquine, atovaquone and artesunate were evaluated against Plasmodium falciparum isolates from children with uncomplicated malaria from Libreville (Gabon), using an isotopic, micro, drug susceptibility test. The IC(50) values for ferrochloroquine were in the range 0.43-30.9 nM and the geo...

Coenzyme Q (CoQ, ubiquinone) is a central electron carrier in mitochondrial respiration. CoQ is synthesized through multiple steps involving a number of different enzymes. The prevailing view that the CoQ used in respiration exists as a free pool that diffuses throughout the mitochondrial inner membrane bilayer has recently been challenged. In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, deletion of the...

Australasian marsupials, especially wallabies, are highly susceptible to clinical toxoplasmosis. This paper describes the use of atovaquone for effective treatment of toxoplasmosis in 4 Bennett's wallabies (Macropus rufogriseus), along with the serology, isolation of Toxoplasma gondii, and genotyping of 3 T. gondii isolates from 5 captive wallabies. This is the first report of success in treati...

Plasmodium parasites undergo a clinically silent and obligatory developmental phase in the host's liver cells before they are able to infect erythrocytes and cause malaria symptoms. To overcome the scarcity of compounds targeting the liver stage of malaria, we screened a library of 1037 existing drugs for their ability to inhibit Plasmodium hepatic development. Decoquinate emerged as the strong...

On irradiation (λ = 350 nm) in neat hex-1-yne, naphthalene-1,2-dione monoacetals 1 afford mixtures of pentacyclic photodimers and up to 25% (isolated yield) of mixed photocycloadducts 2. Careful acidic hydrolysis of the acetal function of 2 gives the title compounds 3, the overall sequence representing a first approach to a (formal) [2 + 2] photocycloadduct of a 1,2-naphthoquinone to an alkyne.

When U.S. troops first encountered drug resistant malaria during the Vietnam war, the United States Army responded by establishing a malaria drug research program. In 1988, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research developed mefloquine (WR 149240) and halofantrine (WR 171669). Actually in association with SmithKline Beecham, the WRAIR is developing tafenoquine (WR 238605), an analogue of prima...

To the best of our knowledge, Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) has not been reported previously as an adverse reaction to Malarone, which is a combination of atovaquone and proguanil hydrochloride used for antimalarial prophylaxis and therapy. We describe a 65-year-old patient who had SJS with typical clinical and histopathological findings associated with the use of Malarone prophylaxis for mala...