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New oxirane derivatives were synthesized using six naphthoquinones as the starting materials. Our biological results showed that these oxiranes acted as trypanocidal agents against Trypanosoma cruzi with minimal cytotoxicity in the VERO cell line compared to naphthoquinones. In particular, oxirane derivative 14 showed low cytotoxicity in a mammalian cell line and exhibited better activity against epimastigote forms of T.cruzi than the current drug used to treat Chagas disease, benznidazole., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

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. In our molecular modeling study, we analyzed the C-ring moiety and the redox center of beta-lapachone molecule as the moieties responsible for the trypanocidal and cytotoxic effects on mammalian cell line. The computational methods used to delineate the structural requirements for the trypanocidal profile pointed out that the transposition of the C-ring moiety of beta-lapachone, combined with its oxyran ring, introduced important molecular requirements for trypanocidal activity in the HOMO energy, HOMO orbital coefficient, LUMO density, electrostatic potential map, dipole moment vector, and calculated logP (clogP) parameter. This study could lead to the development of new antichagasic medicines based on alpha-lapachone analogs.