Publications by authors named "Mavela Mahlalela"

Malaria, caused by parasitic protozoans of the Plasmodium genus, continues to be one of the greatest global health crises, especially in Africa. The emergence of antimalarial drug resistance continues to be a health problem necessitating an urgent need for alternative and cost-effective antimalarials. Using a molecular hybridization approach, we report the design and synthesis of an efficacious novel class of antiprotozoal agents; (E)-1-(4-(4,6-diphenylpyrimidin-2-yl)piperazin-1-yl)-3-phenyl prop-2-en-1-one derivatives (8a-r).

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Article Synopsis
  • Diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis is complicated due to similarities with other diseases like malaria and tuberculosis, necessitating effective detection methods.
  • A novel immunosensor was developed using a CoFeO-C60 nanocomposite and an A2 peptide antigen to identify specific antibodies, showcasing advanced techniques for characterization and testing.
  • The immunosensor demonstrated high reproducibility and sensitivity, with a detection range of 10-10 µg/mL and a limit of 30.34 fg/mL, indicating its promising utility for diagnosing visceral leishmaniasis.
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Novel and effective anti-hypertensive agents are required to manage hypertension; therefore, we synthesised a novel antihypertensive drug from captopril and quercetin (cap-que) and explored its antihypertensive potential in a niosomal formulation via molecular hybridisation. The cap-que hybrid was synthesised, and its structure was characterised via NMR, FTIR, and HRMS. Niosomes were then loaded with cap-que using the thin-film hydration method.

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Novel chemotherapeutic agents against multidrug resistant-tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are urgently needed at this juncture to save the life of TB-infected patients. In this work, we have synthesized and characterized novel isatin hydrazones 4(a-o) and their thiomorpholine tethered analogues 5(a-o). All the synthesized compounds were initially screened for their anti-mycobacterial activity against the HRv strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) under level-I testing.

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SARS-CoV-2 are enveloped positive-stranded RNA viruses that replicate in the cytoplasm. It relies on the fusion of their envelope with the host cell membrane to deliver their nucleocapsid into the host cell. The spike glycoprotein (S) mediates virus entry into cells via the human Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) protein located on many cell types and tissues' outer surface.

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Presently, artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) is the first-line therapy of Plasmodium falciparum malaria. With the emergence of malaria parasites that are resistant to ACT, alternative antimalarial therapies are urgently needed. In line with this, we designed and synthesised a series of novel N-(7-chloroquinolin-4-yl)-N'-(4,6-diphenylpyrimidin-2-yl)alkanediamine hybrids (6a-7c) and evaluated their inhibitory activity against the NF54 chloroquine-susceptible strain as a promising class of antimalarial compounds.

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A novel green and efficient catalyst-free, mild one-pot, multicomponent synthetic strategy has been developed to construct substituted 3,4-dihydro-2-benzo[][1,4]oxazine. This reaction proceeds via in situ formation of Schiff-base followed by base mediated alkylation with phenacyl bromide/substituted phenacyl bromide, finally leading to intramolecular cyclization to give a mixture of diastereomers with excellent diastereoselectivity (up to dr = 99:1), which were isolated as a single diastereomer in moderate to excellent yields (41-92%). Besides, this new versatile methodology provides a wide scope for the synthesis of different functionally substituted benzoxazine scaffolds and can be further exploited as building blocks for the synthesis of multifaceted molecular structures, especially for pharmaceutical applications.

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