Discussion

Therapeutic options for treatment of leishmaniasis have severe side effects and low efficacy, so the search for new effective chemotherapeutic agents is a high priority. The interest in natural products has intensified to find new medicines. We have been evaluating different species of plants in order to find bioactive compounds against  Leishmania .  Lauraceae plants should be highlighted since they produce compounds, including alkaloids, with a huge variety of biological activities. We performed  in vitro screening against Leishmania amazonensis using ethanolic extracts of Lauraceae from the Amazon. Extracts of Aniba panurenis  showed highest activity against  L. amazonensis promastigotes, which lead the isolation of a new alkaloid, C1. We also evaluate changes induced by C1 on L. amazonensis promastigotes. Parasites were treated with the 95.7 �M of C1, after 24h of exposure, reactive oxygen species production and accumulation of lipids bodies werehigher in the treated samples compared to the control.  After 72h, promastigotes exhibited morphological changes with multiple flagella and nuclei and blocked cytokinesis. Increase in autophagic vacuoles was also observed. Our results demonstrated that C1 can induce changes in the parasites that lead to cell death and could be used as a template to synthesize new compounds with higher activity. Further studies to identify possible targets of anti-leishmanial compounds will be performed.