A Cytotoxicity Assay as an Alternative to the Murine Model for the Potency Testing of Venom and Antivenom: An Intralaboratory Pre-validation Study.

Antivenom therapy is the only specific treatment for snakebite envenomation, and antivenom potency determination is key in the efficacy assurance quality control process. Nowadays, this process relies on the murine model - thus, the development of alternative methods is imperative. In the current study, the principle of the proposed method is the ability of venom to induce cytotoxic effects in Vero cells, and the capacity to evaluate the inhibition of this cytotoxicity by the respective antivenom.

Interlaboratory study for the establishment of Brazilian Bothrops Reference Venom and Antivenom for potency evaluation of Bothrops antivenom.

A collaborative study was performed for the establishment of the 5th lot of Brazilian Bothrops Reference Venom and the 1st lot of Brazilian Bothrops Reference Antivenom. All Brazilian manufacturers of Antibothrops Immunoglobulins and the National Control Laboratory participated of the study. The declared potency of the 5th lot of the Bothrops Reference Venom is 40.

Interactions between 4-aminoquinoline and heme: Promising mechanism against Trypanosoma cruzi.

Chagas disease is a neglected tropical disease caused by the flagellated protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. The current drugs used to treat this disease have limited efficacy and produce severe side effects. Quinolines, nitrogen heterocycle compounds that form complexes with heme, have a broad spectrum of antiprotozoal activity and are a promising class of new compounds for Chagas disease chemotherapy.

Potency evaluation of rabies vaccine for human use: the impact of the reduction in the number of animals per dilution.

In order to evaluate the effects of reducing the number of animals used in the NIH mouse protection test for potency determination of inactivated rabies vaccines for human use, a retrospective study of the results obtained in the Brazilian National Control Laboratory, Instituto Nacional de Controle de Qualidade em Saúde (INCQS), was performed, comprising 214 vaccine lots. The INCQS Standard Operating Procedure establishes the use of three vaccine dilutions and 18 animals per dilution, separated into two cages with 9 mice each. The results of the two cages of each dilution were considered as two different groups (C1 and C2), and therefore, for each vaccine lot, three results were obtained: one for the standard test (ST) with 18 mice, one using the C1 cages with 9 mice and another using the C2 cages with 9 mice.

Trypanocidal agents with low cytotoxicity to mammalian cell line: a comparison of the theoretical and biological features of lapachone derivatives.

Starting from alpha- and beta-lapachones, in this work we compared the biological and theoretical profile of several oxyran derivatives of lapachone as potential trypanocidal agents. Our biological results showed that the oxyrans tested act as trypanocidal agents against Trypanosoma cruzi with minimal cytotoxicity in the VERO cell line compared to naphthoquinones. The oxyran derivative of alpha-lapachone (7a) showed to be one of the most potent compounds.

Oxyrane derivative of alpha-lapachone is potent growth inhibitor of Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigote forms.

The investigation of trypanocidal effects against Trypanosoma cruzi and cytotoxicity in VERO cell line of several oxyranes structurally related to beta-lapachone, nor-beta-lapachone, alpha-lapachone, and 4-methoxy-1,2-naphthoquinone is described. It was found that the oxyranes 10 derived from alpha-lapachone showed an approximately the same trypanocidal activity of beta-lapachone. In addition, all the oxyranes showed less cytotoxicity than the corresponding naphthoquinones.