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Background  Parasitic worms represent a substantial disease burden in animals and humans worldwide. The control of parasitic roundworms (nematodes) relies heavily on the use of anthelmintic drugs. However, widespread drug resistance in nematodes seriously compromises the effectiveness of many anthelmintics around the world. Thus, there is a need to discover new drugs, with unique modes of action, against parasites.    Methods  Here, we synthesised and tested 74 selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) for in vitro - activity on parasitic larvae of  Haemonchus contortus  (barber’s pole worm), one of the most important nematode pathogens of small ruminants (including sheep and goats) and a key representative of one of the largest groups of parasitic nematodes (the Strongylida) of animals. We also studied the morphology of treated and untreated larvae using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and assessed the agonistic/antagonistic activity of SERMs in a human embryonic kidney cell line using a luciferase reporter assay system.    Results  We identified three SERMs (one selenophene and two thiophene-core compounds) with potent inhibitory activities (at 3–25 μM) on the motility and development of parasitic stages of  H. contortus . An SEM examination of treated  H. contortus  revealed considerable damage to the cuticle of fourth- but not exsheathed, third-stage larvae; this damage appeared to be consistent with that observed upon treatment with monepantel but not moxidectin (control compounds).    Conclusion  The potency of the three SERMs compared favourably with commercially available anthelmintics, such that they warrant further assessment as nematocides. Future studies could focus on assessing the selectivity of these SERMs to parasites, characterising their target(s) and/or designing analogs that are parasite-specific.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-016-1612-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Selenophene and thiophene-core estrogen receptor ligands that inhibit motility and development of parasitic stages of Haemonchus contortus