Evaluation of kinase-inhibitors nilotinib and everolimus against alveolar echinococcosis in vitro and in a mouse model

Joekel, Deborah E.; Lundström-Stadelmann, Britta; Müllhaupt, Beat; Hemphill, Andrew; Deplazes, Peter (2018). Evaluation of kinase-inhibitors nilotinib and everolimus against alveolar echinococcosis in vitro and in a mouse model. Experimental parasitology, 188, pp. 65-72. Elsevier 10.1016/j.exppara.2018.04.002

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nfection with the larval stage (metacestode) of the fox tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis leads to a primary hepatic disease referred to as alveolar echinococcosis (AE). The progressive disease can be lethal if untreated. In cases where complete parasite resection by surgery is not feasible, the current treatment regimens of AE consist of chemotherapy with the parasitostatic benzimidazoles albendazole or mebendazole over decades. Kinase-inhibitors currently administered in various cancer treatments are of increasing interest also as anti-parasitic drugs due to previous promising in vitro results. In order to search for novel drug targets and treatment regimens, nilotinib (AMN107; Tasigna®), an Abl-tyrosine kinase inhibitor and everolimus (RAD001; Afinitor®), a serine/threonine-kinase inhibitor, were tested for their treatment efficacy against metacestode vesicles of E. multilocularis in vitro and in BALB/c mice. In vitro treatment with 200 μM nilotinib caused drug-induced alterations after 12 days, and everolimus exerted parasite damage at concentrations dosing from 40 to 100 μM after 5 and 12 days of in vitro exposure. Nilotinib (100 mg/kg) + erythromycin (to increase nilotinib plasma levels: 10 mg/kg intraperitoneal) or everolimus (5 mg/kg) were formulated in honey and administered daily for three weeks and subsequently twice a week for an additional three weeks in experimentally infected mice. Treatments did not result in any reduction of parasite growth compared to untreated control groups, whereas oral treatment with albendazole (200 mg/kg) was highly effective. Combined application of the kinase-inhibitors with albendazole did not lead to a synergistic or additive treatment efficacy compared to albendazole treatment alone. These results show that neither nilotinib nor everolimus represent valuable alternatives to the current treatment regimens against AE.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

05 Veterinary Medicine > Research Foci > Host-Pathogen Interaction
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP) > Institute of Parasitology
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP)

UniBE Contributor:

Lundström Stadelmann, Britta, Hemphill, Andrew

Subjects:

600 Technology > 630 Agriculture
500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology

ISSN:

0014-4894

Publisher:

Elsevier

Language:

English

Submitter:

Britta Lundström Stadelmann

Date Deposited:

21 May 2019 12:38

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:26

Publisher DOI:

10.1016/j.exppara.2018.04.002

PubMed ID:

29625098

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.126322

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/126322

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