The interaction of heme with plakortin and a synthetic endoperoxide analogue: new insights into the heme-activated antimalarial mechanism

In the present work we performed a combined experimental and computational study on the interaction of the natural antimalarial endoperoxide plakortin and its synthetic analogue 4a with heme. Obtained results indicate that the studied compounds produce reactive carbon radical species after being reductively activated by heme. In particular, similarly to artemisinin, the formation of radicals prone to inter-molecular reactions should represent the key event responsible for Plasmodium death. To our knowledge this is the first experimental investigation on the reductive activation of simple antimalarial endoperoxides (1,2-dioxanes) by heme and results were compared to the ones previously obtained from the reaction with FeCl(2). The obtained experimental data and the calculated molecular interaction models represent crucial tools for the rational optimization of our promising class of low-cost synthetic antimalarial endoperoxides.