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Herein, we report the synthesis and evaluation of pyrvinium-based antimalarial and antitubercular compounds. Pyrvinium is an FDA approved drug for the treatment of pinworm infection, and it has been reported to have antiparasitic and antimicrobial activities. Pyrvinium contains quinoline core coupled with pyrrole. We replaced the pyrrole with various aryl or heteroaryl substituents to generate pyrvinium analogs. The profiling of these compounds against malaria parasite P. falciparum 3D7 revealed analogs with better antimalarial activity than pyrvinium pamoate. Compound 14 and 16 showed IC50 of 23 nM and 60 nM against P. falciparum 3D7, respectively. These compounds were also effective against drug-resistant malaria parasite P. falciparum Dd2 with IC50 of 53 nM and 97 nM, respectively. The cytotoxicity against CHO-K1, HEK and NRK-49F cells revealed better selectivity index for these new analogs compared to pyrvinium. Additionally, this series of compounds showed activity against M. tuberculosis H37Rv; particularly compounds 10, 13, 14 and 16 showed equipotent antitubercular activity to that of pyrvinium pamoate. The compounds 14 and 16 should be taken forward as leads for further optimization.

The dormant and resistant form of Mycobacterium tuberculosis presents a challenge in developing new anti-tubercular drugs. Herein, we report the synthesis and evaluation of trisubstituted thiazoles as antituberculosis agents. The SAR study has identified a requirement of hydrophobic substituent at C2, ester functionality at C4, and various groups with hydrogen bond acceptor character at C5 of thiazole scaffold. This has led to the identification of 13h and 13p as lead compounds. These compounds inhibited the dormant Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Ra strain and M. tuberculosis H37Rv selectively. Importantly, 13h and 13p were non-toxic to CHO cells. The 13p showed activity against multidrug-resistant tuberculosis isolates.