Possible New Treatments of Piroplasmosis

Though preliminary, the lack of effective treatments for all forms of piroplasmosis makes this an important paper. Hopefully, this will lead the way to better treatments for this disease.
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In Vitro Inhibitory Effects and Bioinformatic Analysis of Norfloxacin and Ofloxacin on Piroplasm
Acta Parasitol. 2023 Mar;68(1):213-222.
Authors
Mohamed Abdo Rizk 1 2 , Shimaa Abd El-Salam El-Sayed 3 4 , Ikuo Igarashi 5
Affiliations

1 Department of Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura, 35516, Egypt. dr_moh_abdo2008@mans.edu.eg.
2 National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Inada-Cho, Obihiro, Hokkaido, Japan. dr_moh_abdo2008@mans.edu.eg.
3 National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Inada-Cho, Obihiro, Hokkaido, Japan. Shimaa_a@mans.edu.eg.
4 Department of Biochemistry and Chemistry of Nutrition, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura, 35516, Egypt. Shimaa_a@mans.edu.eg.
5 National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Inada-Cho, Obihiro, Hokkaido, Japan. igarcpmi@obihiro.ac.jp.

Abstract

Purpose: The in vitro inhibitory effect of two fluroquinolone antibiotics, norfloxacin and ofloxacin, was evaluated in this study on the growth of several Babesia and Theileria parasites with highlighting the bioinformatic analysis for both drugs with the commonly used antibabesial drug, diminazene aceturate (DA), and the recently identified antibabesial drugs, luteolin, and pyronaridine tetraphosphate (PYR).

Methods: The antipiroplasm efficacy of screened fluroquinolones in vitro and in vivo was assessed using a fluorescence-based SYBR Green I assay. Using atom Pair signatures, we investigated the structural similarity between fluroquinolones and the antibabesial drugs.

Results: Both fluroquinolones significantly inhibited (P < 0.05) the in vitro growths of Babesia bovis (B. bovis), B. bigemina, B. caballi, and Theileria equi (T. equi) in a dose-dependent manner. The best inhibitory effect for both drugs was observed on the growth of T. equi. Atom Pair fingerprints (APfp) results and AP Tanimoto values revealed that both fluroquinolones, norfloxacin with luteolin, and ofloxacin with PYR, showed the maximum structural similarity (MSS). Two drug interactions findings confirmed the synergetic interaction between these combination therapies against the in vitro growth of B. bovis and T. equi. Conclusion: This study helped in discovery novel potent antibabesial combination therapies consist of norfloxacin/ofloxacin, norfloxacin/luteolin, and ofloxacin/PYR. Keywords: Babesia; Bioinformatic analysis; In vitro; Luteolin; Norfloxacin; Ofloxacin; Pyronaridine tetraphosphate; Theileria.