Designed, synthetic heterocyclic diamidines have excellent activity against eukaryotic
parasites that cause diseases such as sleeping sickness and leishmania and adversely
affect millions of people each year. The most active compounds bind specifically and
strongly in the DNA minor groove at AT sequences. The compounds enter parasite cells
rapidly and appear first in the kinetoplast that contains the mitochondrial DNA of the
parasite. With time the compounds are also generally seen in the cell nucleus but are not …