Hinokinin, an Emerging Bioactive Lignan

Marcotullio, Maria Carla; Pelosi, Azzurra; Curini, Massimo

Hinokinin (1) showed an interesting activity against Trypanosoma cruzi, the responsible of Chagas' disease, a neglected protozoan disease that affects some 8 million people in Latin America [85, 86] . Currently, there are only two effective drugs for Chagas' disease treatment, namely nifurtimox and benznidazole (BZN), which both cause serious side effects, therefore, there is an urgent demand for the discovery of safer and more effective new therapeutic compounds. T. cruzi has a complex life cycle characterized by several developmental forms present in vertebrate and invertebrate hosts. This parasite exists in at least three morphologically distinct forms: infective (metacyclic or blood trypomastigotes), insect borne (epimastigotes) which replicate in the vector, and intracellular replicative (amastigotes) [87] . Hinokinin (1) in these last years has been studied as an interesting antitripanosomal compound [86] . In 2005 de Souza et al. tested hinokinin (1) in vitro against free amastigotes forms of Y strain of T. cruzi [88] . They found that 1 had an IC50 of 0.7 μM compared to BZN (IC50 0.8 μM) (Table 3) . [89] ; c [90] ; d [90] .