Malaria-Infected Mice Live Until at Least Day 30 after a New Artemisinin-Derived Thioacetal Thiocarbonate Combined with Mefloquine Are Administered Together in a Single, Low, Oral Dose

Abstract

In only three steps and in 21-67% overall yields from the natural trioxane artemisinin, a series of 21 new trioxane C-10 thioacetals was prepared. Upon receiving a single oral dose of only 6 mg/kg of the monomeric trioxane 12c combined with 18 mg/kg of mefloquine hydrochloride, Plasmodium berghei-infected mice survived on average 29.8 days after infection. Two of the four mice in this group had no parasites detectable in their blood on day 30 after infection, and they behaved normally and appeared healthy. One of the mice had 11% blood parasitemia on day 30, and one mouse in this group died on day 29. Of high medicinal importance, the efficacy of this ACT chemotherapy is much better than (almost double) the efficacy under the same conditions using as a positive control the popular trioxane drug artemether plus mefloquine hydrochloride (average survival time of only 16.5 days).