Flucofuron as a Promising Therapeutic Agent against Brain-Eating Amoeba

Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) is a rare and fulminant neurodegenerative disease caused by the free-living amoeba Naegleria fowleri. Currently, there is a lack of standardized protocols for therapeutic action. In response to the critical need for effective therapeutic agents, we explored the Global Health Priority Box, a collection of 240 compounds provided by the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV). From this pool, flucofuron emerged as a promising candidate, exhibiting high efficacy against trophozoites of both N. fowleri strains (ATCC 30808 IC50 : 2.58 ± 0.64 μM and ATCC 30215 IC50: 2.47 ± 0.38 μM), being even active against the resistant cyst stage (IC50: 0.88 ± 0.07 μM). Moreover, flucofuron induced diverse metabolic events that suggest the triggering of apoptotic cell death. This study highlights the potential of repurposing medications for treating challenging diseases, such as PAM.

• Publication year

  2024

• Venue

  ACS Infectious Diseases

• Publication date

  2024-05-17

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1021/acsinfecdis.4c00062PMID 38757533PMCID 11184546
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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