Potential leishmanicidal of the thiosemicarbazones: A review

Abstract

Thiosemicarbazones constitute a class of organic compounds with the general structure R=N-NH-CS-NHR and are known for their biological properties, making them an important structure for drug development. This work presents a systematic review of the main publications from the last decade (2013–2023) reporting the leishmanicidal potential of thiosemicarbazones. A search was conducted in three databases: Web of Science, Science Direct, and SciFinder, using the following singular English descriptors, ‘thiosemicarbazone’ and ‘leishmanicidal.’ During the selection process, 25 articles were identified, 12 were excluded due to duplication, and 5 were excluded for not meeting the pre-defined inclusion criteria. As a result, 8 articles were selected for discussion in this systematic review. In the reviewed studies, 118 thiosemicarbazones were synthesized and tested in vitro for their activity against protozoa of the Leishmania genus. In three of these studies, researchers identified thiosemicarbazones with promising results and chose to go deeper into their investigation. Given the significant leishmanicidal activity observed in thiosemicarbazones studied over the past 10 years, coupled with the scarcity of publications – less than one article per year – it is evident that this represents a promising research field.

Keywords

• Antileishmanial
• Antiprotozoal
• Leishmanicide
• Schiff base
• Semicarbazone