Abstract:
Chagas disease (CD) is a serious health problem worldwide, affecting between 6 and 7 million people, especially in Latin America. This tropical disease, caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, can be asymptomatic during the acute phase (first two months of infection), while in the chronic phase irreversible damages to the heart and/or digestive system develop in 30-40% of those infected. The drugs currently used to treat CD are not always effective and they causeside effectsthat lead patients to abandon treatment; therefore, new therapeutic options are required.
In this work, we evaluated the antiparasitic and cytotoxic activity of three antimicrobial peptides of the dermaseptins (DRS) family (DRS-SP2, DRS-SP4 and DRS-SP5) obtained from the cutaneous secretion of the frog Agalychnis spurrelli, against the trypomastigote and amastigote stages of T. cruzi, Tulahuen-β-gal strain, which express β-galactosidase. In conclusion, β-galactosidase activity measurements, oxidation-reduction of resazurin and electronic microscopy analysis confirmed that DRS-SP2, DRS-SP4 and DRS-SP5 are capable of lysing both, extracellular (IC50s 1.26, 2.31 and 19.0, respectively) and intracellular parasites (IC50s 5.85, 28.07 and 14.59, respectively), while the DRS-SP4 has the highest ratio (14.14) between parasite/host cell cytotoxicity.
