The anti-malarial artesunate also exerts profound anti-cancer activity. The susceptibility of tumor cells to artesunate can be enhanced by ferrous iron. The transferrin receptor (TfR) is involved in iron uptake by internalization of transferrin and is over-expressed in rapidly growing tumors. The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters ABCB6 and ABCB7 are also involved in iron homeostasis. To i...

Artesunate has been recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the first-line treatment for severe malaria since 2010. It is not licensed in the United States but is available from CDC under an investigational new drug (IND) protocol. During 2010-2012, a total of 19 cases of delayed hemolytic anemia after treatment of severe malaria with artesunate were published in the peer-reviewed...

Artemisinin derivatives are well-tolerated anti-malaria drugs that also exert anti-cancer activity. Here, we investigated artemisinin and its derivatives dihydroartemisinin and artesunate in a panel of chemosensitive and chemoresistant human neuroblastoma cells as well as in primary neuroblastoma cultures. Only dihydroartemisinin and artesunate affected neuroblastoma cell viability with artesun...

Artemisinin and its derivates are an important class of antimalarial drug and are described to possess immunomodulatory activities. Few studies have addressed the effect of artesunate in the murine malaria model or its effect on host immune response during malaria infection. Herein, we study the effect of artesunate treatment and describe an auxiliary mechanism of artesunate in modulating the i...

Artesunate, a semi-synthetic derivative of artemisinin, is an effective and safe anti-malaria drug, which also exhibits activity towards cancer cells. The present investigation studied the effect of artesunate on the mitosis of cancer and yeast cells by fluorescence microscopy and mRNA microarrays with a focus on the mitotic spindle checkpoint. The cytotoxicity of artesunate towards seven cell ...

BACKGROUND Artesunate is an antimalarial agent with broad anti-cancer activity in in vitro and animal experiments and case reports. Artesunate has not been studied in rigorous clinical trials for anticancer effects. AIM To determine the anticancer effect and tolerability of oral artesunate in colorectal cancer (CRC). METHODS This was a single centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-contro...

AIM The aim was to compare the pharmacokinetic properties of artesunate and dihydroartemisinin in the same women: i) pregnant with acute uncomplicated malaria on day 1 and 2, ii) pregnant with convalescent malaria on day 7 and iii) in a healthy state 3 months post-partum on day 1, 2 and 7. METHODS Non-linear mixed-effects modelling was used to compare plasma concentration-time profiles of art...

The present study aimed to determine whether artesunate has beneficial effects on bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis in rats and to examine the possible mechanisms underlying these effects. All experiments were performed with male Sprague Dawley rats weighing 180-250 g. Animals were randomly divided into four experimental groups that were administered either saline alone, artesunate alone, bl...

In this study, the effects of half, normal and double clinical doses of artesunate; artesunate/sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine; artesunate/amodiaquine and their combinants [sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine and amodiaquine] on the basal serum levels of testosterone, FSH, LH and prolactin of the guinea-pig were investigated. The results of this study showed that the agents caused significant decreases [P<0.05...

Abstract Background Airway remodelling is the major pathological feature of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and leads to poorly reversible airway obstruction. Current pharmacological interventions are ineffective in controlling remodelling. In present study, we investigated potential role artesunate preventing treating underlying molecular mechanisms vitro vivo. Methods A COPD rat...