Inhibitor Effect Physiology of Some Purine Analogs on Metabolism of Leishmania major Promastigotes

The capacity of purine analogues (pyrazolo (3,4-d) pyrimidine, pyrazolo (4,3-d) pyrimidine and deazapurine) to inhibit Leishmania major promastigotes metabolism was evaluated.
The observations reported here indicate that APP, HPP, FoA and FoB inhibited the synthesis of RNA, DNA and the activities of adenine phosphoribosyltransferase and adenosine kinase in promastigotes of L. major. It has been postulated that Leishmania promastigotes have a unique ability to convert these analogs sequentially to their nucleoside triphosphates leading to their incorporation into RNA and cytotoxicity to the organism.