An in vivo drug screening model using glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficient mice to predict the hemolytic toxicity of 8-aminoquinolines

Anti-malarial 8-aminoquinolines drugs cause acute hemolytic anemia in individuals with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PDD). Efforts to develop non-hemolytic 8-aminoquinolines have been severely limited caused by the lack of a predictive in vivo animal model of hemolytic potential that would allow screening of candidate compounds. This report describes a G6PDD mouse model with a phenotype closely resembling the G6PDD phenotype found in the African A-type G6PDD human. These G6PDD mice, given different doses of primaquine, which used as a reference hemolytic drug, display a full array of hemolytic anemia parameters, consistently and reproducibly. The hemolytic and therapeutic indexes were generated for evaluation of hemotoxicity of drugs. This model demonstrated a complete hemolytic toxicity response to another known hemolytic antimalarial drug, pamaquine, but no response to non-hemolytic drugs, chloroquine and mefloquine. These results suggest that this model is suitable for evaluation of selected 8-AQ type candidate antimalarial drugs for their hemolytic potential.