Manipulation of the N-alkyl substituent in amodiaquine to overcome the verapamil-sensitive chloroquine resistance component.

Aminoquinoline resistance correlates with lipid solubility at pH 7.2. Consequently, the in vivo dealkylation of amodiaquine, to the less lipid-soluble desethylamodiaquine, is a likely contributor to therapeutic failure in vivo. Therefore, 4-aminoquinoline drugs with lipid solubilities similar to that of amodiaquine, but which are not subject to side chain modification in vivo, should be superior antimalarial agents. In this study, we have identified amopyroquine and N-tertbutylamodiaquine as two such compounds. The values for the logarithms of the partition coefficients for amopyroquine and N-tertbutylamodiaquine are between those for amodiaquine and its dealkylated metabolite, desethylamodiaquine. Both amopyroquine and N-tertbutylamodiaquine possess levels of antimalarial activity greater than that of desethylamodiaquine and significantly reduced cross-resistance patterns; i.e., the former two compounds are not subject to the verapamil-sensitive resistance mechanism. Simple in vitro markers of direct toxicity and potential reactive metabolite formation suggest that these two compounds are no more toxic than amodiaquine and desethylamodiaquine.