Metallocene-based antimalarials: an exploration into the influence of the ferrocenyl moiety on in vitro antimalarial activity in chloroquine-sensitive and chloroquine-resistant strains of Plasmodium falciparum.

To establish the role of the ferrocenyl moiety in the antiplasmodial activity of ferroquine, compounds in which this moiety is replaced by the corresponding ruthenium-based moieties were synthesized and evaluated. In both the sensitive (D10) and resistant (K1) strains of Plasmodium falciparum, ruthenoquine analogues showed comparable potency to ferroquine. This suggests that a probable role of the ferrocenyl fragment is to serve simply as a hydrophobic spacer group.