Strategies for overcoming tropical disease by ruthenium complexes with purine analog: Application against Leishmania spp. and Trypanosoma cruzi

Three ruthenium(II/III) complexes containing the nucleobase analog 5,6,7-trimethyl-1,2,4-triazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine (tmtp): cis,fac-[RuCl2(dmso)3(tmtp)] (1), mer-[RuCl3(dmso)(H2O)(tmtp)]·2H2O (2) and fac,cis-[RuCl3(H2O)(tmtp)2] (3) were prepared and structurally characterized. In vitro studies show their potential to become a new generation of highly effective and non-toxic antiparasitic agents to fight the neglected Chagas disease and leishmaniasis.280