Cryptosporidiosis is an intestinal disease that affects a variety of hosts including animals
and humans. Since no vaccines exist against the disease till date, drug treatment is the mainstay of
disease control. Nitazoxanide (NTZ) is the only FDA-approved drug for the treatment of human
cryptosporidiosis. However, its efficacy in immunocompromised people such as those with AIDS,
in malnourished children, or those with concomitant cryptosporidiosis is limited. In the absence of
effective drugs against cryptosporidiosis, improving the efficacy of existing drugs may offer an attractive
alternative. In the present work, we have assessed the potential of the cell-penetrating peptide
(CPP) octaarginine (R8) to increase the uptake of NTZ. Octaarginine (R8) was synthetically attached
to NTZ in an enzymatically releasable manner and used to inhibit growth of Cryptosporidium parvum
in an in vitro culture system using human ileocecal adenocarcinoma (HCT-8) cell line. We observed
a significant concentration-dependent increase in drug efficacy. We conclude that coupling of octaarginine
to NTZ is beneficial for drug activity and it represents an attractive strategy to widen the
repertoire of anti-cryptosporidial therapeutics. Further investigations such as in vivo studies with the
conjugate drug will help to further characterize this strategy for the treatment of cryptosporidiosis
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:87523 |
| Date | 20 October 2023 |
| Creators | Nguyen-Ho-Bao, Tran, Ambe, Lum A., Berberich, Maxi, Hermosilla, Carlos, Taubert, Anja, Daugschies, Arwid, Kamena, Faustin |
| Publisher | MDPI |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 653 |
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