Green microalgae as a potential source of trypanocide compounds.

Due to the limitations of Chagas disease therapy, microalgae can be promising in the search of new trypanocidal compounds, since these organisms produce bioactive compounds with large pharmaceutical applications, including antiparasitic effects. In this work, trypanocidal activity of aqueous extract of and, for the first time, aqueous extract of were evaluated against trypomastigote forms of . In addition, cytotoxic activity in Vero cells was evaluated. Our results showed that and present trypanocidal activity (IC = 32.9 µg ml and 36.4 µg ml, respectively), however, did not present cytotoxic effects in Vero cells (CC > 600 µg ml) and displayed a higher selectivity against trypomastigotes forms of (SI > 18). Thus, microalgae extracts, such as aqueous extract of , are promising potential candidates for the development of natural antichagasic drugs.