Saturday, August 05, 2017

Activity of rosuvastatin in tachyzoites of Toxoplasma gondii (RH strain) in HeLa cells

 2017 Jul 31. pii: S0014-4894(17)30166-2. doi: 10.1016/j.exppara.2017.07.009. [Epub ahead of print]

Abstract

Due to the toxicity of conventional medication in toxoplasmosis, some drugs are being studied for treating this infection, such as statins, especially rosuvastatin compound, which is efficient in inhibiting the initial isoprenoid biosynthesis processes in humans and the parasite. The goal of this studywas to assess the activity of rosuvastatin in HeLa cells infectedwiththe RH strain of T. gondii. In the experiment, HeLa cells (1 × 105) were infected with tachyzoites of T. gondii (5 × 105). After the experimental infection, we assessed the number of infected cells and the amount of intracellular tachyzoites. In addition, culture supernatants were collected to determine the amount of cytokines by cytometric bead array. We observed that there was no cytotoxicity in the concentrations tested in this cell line. The effect of rosuvastatin showed a significant reduction in both the number of infected cells and the proliferation index of the intracellular parasite, when compared with the conventional treatment combining sulfadiazine and pyrimethamine for toxoplasmosis. There were also reduced levels of cytokines IL-6 and IL-17. Therefore, it was concluded that rosuvastatin exhibited antiproliferative activity. The data presented are significantto promote further studiesandthe search for alternative treatment for toxoplasmosis.

KEYWORDS: 

Rosuvastatin; Statins; Toxoplasmosis
PMID:
 
28774497
 
DOI:
 
10.1016/j.exppara.2017.07.009

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