The antileishmanial activity of isoforms 6- and 8-selective histone deacetylase inhibitors.

Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) pleiotropy is largely due to their nonselective inhibition of various cellular HDAC isoforms. Connecting inhibition of a specific isoform to biological responses and/or phenotypes is essential toward deconvoluting HDACi pleiotropy. The contribution of classes I and II HDACs to the antileishmanial activity of HDACi was investigated using the amastigote and promastigote forms of Leishmania donovani . We observed that the antileishmanial activities of HDACi are largely due to the inhibition of HDAC6-like activity. This observation could facilitate the development of HDACi as antileishmanial agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]