Computer-Aided Drug Design Using Sesquiterpene Lactones as Sources of New Structures with Potential Activity against Infectious Neglected Diseases

Abstract

This review presents an survey to the biological importance of sesquiterpene lactones (SLs) in the fight against four infectious neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)—leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, Chagas disease, and sleeping sickness—as alternatives to the current chemotherapies that display several problems such as low effectiveness, resistance, and high toxicity. Several studies have demonstrated the great potential of some SLs as therapeutic agents for these NTDs and the relationship between the protozoal activities with their chemical structure. Recently, Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) studies have helped increase the knowledge of SLs regarding their mechanisms, the discovery of new lead molecules, the identification of pharmacophore groups and increase the biological activity by employing in silico tools such as molecular docking, virtual screening and Quantitative-Structure Activity Relationship (QSAR) studies.

Keywords

• computer-aided drug design
• neglected tropical diseases
• sesquiterpene lactones
• secondary metabolites
• leishmaniasis
• Chagas disease
• sleeping sickness
• schistosomiasis
• QSAR studies