Natural products for controlling dengue and its vectors

Mosquitoes are estimated to be the deadliest living beings globally, mediating a million deaths worldwide. One of the diseases that mosquitoes can transmit is dengue fever, caused by the dengue virus, in which the species Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus are involved. Currently, dengue fever treatment mainly controls symptoms since there are still no licensed vaccines and/or approved drugs to treat this infectious disease. The products of natural origin, obtained from plants, microorganisms, and animals, have served as a basis for developing active substances against several diseases, including those resistant to conventional treatments. Besides, they provide us with a variety of molecular scaffolds beyond the developmental capabilities of synthetic medicinal chemists, serving as a source of constant inspiration for the development of new drugs. Phenolic compounds, flavonoids, peptides, alkaloids, and terpenes have been shown to inhibit essential viral replication processes, showing promise for dengue treatment. Other compounds still have the potential to control vector proliferation, such as simple aromatic compounds, lactones, terpenes, steroids, alkaloids, naphthoquinones, and phenylpropanoid coumarins, flavonoids, and lignans, acting both against the adult vector and against its larvae, and even their eggs. Notwithstanding these facts, we propose with this chapter a review of scientific studies that deal with the obtaining of useful substances produced by nature and/or inspired by nature for the control of the vector and treatment of the disease, focusing on the existing relationships between the molecular scaffolds and their biological activities.