Malarial parasites employ actin dynamics for motility, and any disruption to these dynamics renders the parasites unable to effectively establish infection. Therefore, actin presents a potential target for malarial drug discovery, and naturally occurring actin inhibitors such as latrunculins are a promising starting point. However, the limited availability of the natural product and the laborious route for synthesis of latrunculins have hindered their potential development as drug candidates. In this regard, we recently described novel truncated latrunculins, with superior actin binding potency and selectivity towards P. falciparum actin than the canonical latrunculin B. In this paper, we further explore the truncated latrunculin core to summarize the SAR for inhibition of malaria motility. This study helps further understand the binding pattern of these analogues in order to develop them as drug candidates for malaria.

中文翻译：

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具有抗疟活性的截短的 Latrunculin 类似物的构效研究

疟疾寄生虫利用肌动蛋白动力学进行运动，对这些动力学的任何破坏都会使寄生虫无法有效地建立感染。因此，肌动蛋白是发现疟疾药物的潜在靶点，天然存在的肌动蛋白抑制剂（如 latrunculins）是一个有希望的起点。然而，天然产物的有限可用性和合成 latrunculins 的费力路线阻碍了它们作为候选药物的潜在发展。在这方面，我们最近描述了新型截短的 latrunculins，具有优异的肌动蛋白结合效力和对恶性疟原虫的选择性肌动蛋白比经典的 latrunculin B。在本文中，我们进一步探索了截短的 latrunculin 核心，以总结抑制疟疾运动的 SAR。这项研究有助于进一步了解这些类似物的结合模式，以便将它们开发为疟疾候选药物。