Antileishmanial Mechanism of Diamidines Involves Targeting Kinetoplasts

Leishmaniasis is a disease caused by pathogenicLeishmania parasites; current treatments are toxic and expensive, and drug resistance has emerged. While pentamidine, a diamidine-type compound, is one of the treatments, its antileishmanial mechanism of action has not been investigated in depth. Here we tested several diamidines, including pentamidine and its analog DB75, againstLeishmania donovani and elucidated their antileishmanial mechanisms. We identified three promising new antileishmanial diamidine compounds with 50% effective concentrations (EC50 s) of 3.2, 3.4, and 4.5 μM, while pentamidine and DB75 exhibited EC50 s of 1.46 and 20 μM, respectively. The most potent antileishmanial inhibitor, compound 1, showed strong DNA binding properties, with a shift in the melting temperature (ΔTm ) of 24.2°C, whereas pentamidine had a ΔTm value of 2.1°C, and DB75 had a ΔTm value of 7.7°C. Additionally, DB75 localized inL. donovani kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) and mitochondria but not in nuclear DNA (nDNA). For 2 new diamidines, strong localization signals were observed in kDNA at 1 μM, and at higher concentrations, the signals also appeared in nuclei. All tested diamidines showed selective and dose-dependent inhibition of kDNA, but not nDNA, replication, likely by inhibitingL. donovani topoisomerase IB. Overall, these results suggest that diamidine antileishmanial compounds exert activity by accumulating toward and blocking replication of parasite kDNA.