The Effect of BTK Inhibitor Ibrutinib on Leishmania infantum Infection In Vitro

Purpose Leishmaniasis is a neglected infectious disease affecting millions of people worldwide. Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), caused by Leishmania infantum and Leishmania donovani, is one of the main clinical forms of the disease and fatal if not treated promptly and properly. Despite being available for the last 70 years, current drugs used in the treatment of leishmaniasis have serious problems as they have high toxicity, require long-term administration and cause serious side-effects, leading to the emergence of resistant and relapse cases. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the discovery of novel antileishmanial molecules and the development of new treatment regimens. The drug used for chemotherapy of B-cell malignancies, Ibrutinib, an inhibitor of Bruton’s Tyrosine Kinase (BTK), can offer a new therapeutic perspective due to the functions of BTK on intracellular signaling mechanism of macrophages, which are the primary resident cell for Leishmania . Hence, the study aimed to evaluate ibrutinib as a potential anti- Leishmanial drug. Method In this study, we evaluated the antileishmanial effect of Ibrutinib by in vitro L. infantum infection model using macrophages, with cell viability assay, parasite rescue assay, real-time qPCR. Results We showed that Ibrutinib was significantly more effective than the Glucantime against L. infantum . In addition, our data revealed that Ibrutinib inhibited parasite growth and load without impairing macrophage viability. Conclusions Consequently, due to its efficacy and safety, Ibrutinib may be a promising candidate for the treatment of VL caused by L. infantum as a host-targeted drug.