Evaluation of antileishmanial activity of harzialactone a isolated from the marine-derived fungus <i>Paecilomyces</i> sp

Abstract

Fractionation of extracts from the culture broth of the marine-derived fungus, <i>Paecilomyces</i> sp. 7A22, resulted in the isolation of the harzialactone A (<b>HA</b>), a known compound previously isolated from fungi of marine environments. The chemical structure of <b>HA</b> was determined by spectroscopic analyses. Upon evaluation of <b>HA</b> on antileishmanial assays against <i>Leishmania amazonensis</i>, <b>HA</b> exhibited significant activity against promastigotes forms with IC₅₀ of 5.25 µg mL^-1 and moderate activity against intracellular amastigotes with IC₅₀ of 18.18 µg mL^-1. This is the first report on the antileishmanial activity of <b>HA</b>, and the effects of <b>HA</b> presented in this work suggest that this class of compounds are suitable for future biological <i>in vitro</i> and <i>in vivo</i> studies for the search of natural products with activity against <i>Leishmania</i> spp. Furthermore, the present results corroborate marine-derived fungi as a promising source of natural products with antiparasitic activity.