IN-VITRO ACTIVITY AND MUTAGENICITY OF BISBENZYLISOQUINOLINES AND QUINONES AGAINST TRYPANOSOMA-CRUZI TRYPOMASTIGOTES

The accidental transmission of Chagas' disease by donor blood is recog nized as a serious problem in the Latin America. This paper describes the screening of natural products as possible new chemoprophylactic ad ditives in blood banks. Ten plant-derived alkaloids, three terpenes, t hree quinones and 14 crude plant extracts were tested against bloodstr eam forms of Trypanosoma cruzi Y strain in vitro at 4 degrees C at a c oncentration of 250 mu g/mL, using gentian violet as the baseline drug . The bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloids, cocsuline, daphnandrine, daphno line, isochondodendrine, gyrocarpine, limacine and pheanthine and the naphthoquinone, plumbagin completely lysed the trypomastigote forms of T. cruzi at a concentration of 250 mu g/mL, this activity was verifie d by the subculture of the treated medium during 4 months. The active alkaloids, pheanthine, daphnoline and limacine were evaluated for muta genicity by the sister chromatid exchange assay (SCE) in peripheral ly mphocytes. Daphnoline and pheanthine elicited no significant increase of the SCE up to 50 mu g/mL, while limacine significantly increased th e SCE values at a concentration of 25 mu g/mL, and 50 mu g/mL.