Mahanine

Mahanine is a carbazole alkaloid with various biological properties. Mahanine is a potent anticancer agent against different types of cancer cells. Mahanine exhibits antileishmanial activity and can be used for Leishmania infection research research.

Mahanine (0-50 µM; 24 or 48 hours) induces a dose-dependent decrease in cell viability of AG83 promastigotes after 24 hr and 48 hr; the IC₅₀ values were 16.7±1.7 µM and 11.5±0.8 µM respectively. In a drug resistant GE1 strain, Mahanine treatment exhibits dose-dependent cell death in 24 and 48 hr treatment with IC₅₀ values 40.3±2.2 µM and 29.1±1.3 µM respectively^[1].
Mahanine (5.0 and 10 µM; 24 hours) exhibits increased accumulation of cells at G2/M phase being 39.0±1.90% and 41.0±2.10% respectively compared to untreated promastigotes (35.3 ± 2.60%) in AG83 promastigote ^[1].
Mahanine (25 µM; 24 hours) exhibitssignificantly increased intracellular ROS level within 20 min (MFI being 889 ± 26) which reached to 1288 ± 56 after one hour compared to the basal level (604 ± 34) in untreated promastigote. H2DCFDA positivity was measured by FACS^[1].

Mahanine (oral gavage; 20 mg/kg/40 mg/kg; b.w/day; 5 days) results in 89.1±4.1% reductions in parasite burden at 20 mg/kg, and leads to 96.2±0.3% reductions in parasite burden at 40 mg/kg in a well-established acute model to control Leishmania infection^[1].

References:
[1]. Kaushik Bhattacharya, et al. Apoptotic effects of mahanine on human leukemic cells are mediated through crosstalk between Apo-1/Fas signaling and the Bid protein and via mitochondrial pathways. Biochem Pharmacol. 2010 Feb 1;79(3):361-72.
[2]. Saptarshi Roy, et al. Mahanine exerts in vitro and in vivo antileishmanial activity by modulation of redox homeostasis. Sci Rep