Natural Product-Inspired Aryl Isonitriles As A New Class Of Antimalarial Compounds Against Drug-Resistant Parasites

Malaria is a prevalent and deadly disease. The fast emergence of drug-resistant malaria parasites makes the situation even worse. Thus, developing new chemical entities, preferably with novel mechanisms of action, is urgent and important. Inspired by the complex and scarce isonitrile-containing terpene natural products, we evaluated a collection of easily prepared synthetic mono- and bis-isonitrile compounds, most of which feature a simple, but rigid stilbene backbone. From this collection, potent antimalarial lead compounds with EC50 value ranging from 27 to 88 nM against the Dd2 strain using a blood stage proliferation assay were identified. Preliminary SAR information showed that the isonitrile group is essential for the observed activity against the Dd2 strain and the bis-isonitrile compounds in general perform better than the corresponding mono-isonitrile compounds.