Trioxaquine PA1259 alkylates heme in the blood-feeding parasite Schistosoma mansoni.

Trioxaquine PA1259 is an efficient drug on larval- and adult-stage schistosomes, able to alkylate heme inside worms treated with it, leading to the formation of covalent heme-drug adducts. Such a mechanism, similar to one reported for other trioxaquines in Plasmodium, indicates that heme may be a common target of these trioxane-based drugs in different blood-feeding parasites.