Pedro Martin-Acosta, Abbas H K Al Temimi, Luma Godoy Magalhaes, Juan Salamanca-Viloria, Jose Ignacio Martin Hernando, Ana I Villegas, Virginia Franco Hidalgo, Joel McMillan, Andrew Plater, Mark Anderson, Raquel Gabarro, Felix Calderon, Maria Santos Martinez-Martinez, Emiliana D'Oria, Jair L Siqueira-Neto, Barbara Forte, Esther Fernandez, Elizabeth A Winzeler, Ana Lisa Valenciano, Beatriz Baragaña, Sonia Moliner-Cubel, Francisco Javier Gamo
Despite considerable progress in prevention, treatment, and eradication efforts, malaria continues to impose a significant public health and socioeconomic burden for many countries around the globe. With the effectiveness of current treatment options partially or totally compromised due to resistance, the validation of new targets and the development of new drugs that can reach the demanding standards required for the treatment of this disease represent an urgent and considerable challenge. Herein, we report the evaluation of approximately 48 200-compound library selected from the GSK collection against PfGCN5. From the 6 initial hits with pIC50 > 5, two compounds were progressed for further in vitro profiling and optimization. Computational and medicinal chemistry efforts delivered significantly improved compounds 21h and 41d with pIC50 within the submicromolar range (pIC50 6.6 and 7.0, respectively), but unfortunately, the lead compounds did not show potent in vitro antiparasitic activity. Although further studies are still necessary, our initial data suggest that targeting PfGCN5 to develop new antimalarial compounds might be challenging.