Recent updates in the development of mettallocenes with antimalarial activity

Abstract

Great progress in the fight against malaria has been made in the last decade. Nevertheless, the development of resistance to almost all commonly used antimalarial drugs poses a major threat to the sustainability of this progress and highlights the need for the discovery of novel potent and inexpensive antimalarials to stay one step ahead. After the finding of ferrocene-containing analog of chloroquine - ferroquine, that can overcome Plasmodium resistance, a ?big-bang? in the metallocene antimalarials research has occurred. This review describes in detail the most recent advances in this important field of medicinal chemistry. Even though it is quite hard to beat ferroquine, it seems that this could be succeeded by suitable modifications in the structure of ferroquine, by the introduction of ? second metal center or through joining metallocenes with two or more proven antimalarial motifs into a single molecule.