Abstract
Toxoplasma gondii is a serious hazard to public health and animal husbandry. Due to the current dilemma of treatment of toxoplasmosis, it is urgent to find new anti-T. gondii drugs to treat toxoplasmosis. In this study, the anti-T. gondii activity of Origanum vulgare essential oil (Ov EO) was firstly studied, and then, carvanol (Ca), the main ingredient of Ov EO was evaluated using the MTT assay on human foreskin fibroblast (HFF) cells in vitro. The cytotoxicity was evaluated using the MTT assay on HFF cells. The CC50 of Ov EO and Ca was 134.9 and 43.93 μg/ml, respectively. Both of them exhibited anti-parasitic activity, and inhibited the growth of T. gondii in a dose-dependent manner. For the inhibition effect, Ca was better than Ov EO at the same concentration, the IC50 of Ov EO and Ca was 16.08 and 7.688 μg/ml, respectively. In addition, treatment with Ca, was found to change the morphology of T. gondii tachyzoites and made their shapes curl up. These results showed that Ca was able to inhibit the proliferation of T. gondii by reducing invasion, which may be due to its detrimental effect on the mobility of tachyzoites. Our results indicated that Ca could be a potential new and effective drug for treating toxoplasmosis.
Highlights
The opportunistic pathogen Toxoplasma gondii is a serious hazard to public health and animal husbandry (Chemoh et al, 2013)
These results indicated that Origanum vulgare essential oil (Ov EO) was able to inhibit the growth of RH within safe concentrations
The results indicated that the growth of T. gondii was inhibited by each of the concentrations of Ov EO and Ca tested (Figure 2B)
Summary
The opportunistic pathogen Toxoplasma gondii is a serious hazard to public health and animal husbandry (Chemoh et al, 2013). One-third of the people in the world have been infected by T. gondii where tachyzoites, cysts and oocysts are three infectious stages. Human intake of raw meat or water containing T. gondii cysts or oocysts can be infectious. Direct contact with T. gondii tachyzoites between the mucous membrane and the damaged skin can cause an infection. Cats are intermediate hosts of T. gondii and can rule out infectious oocysts. Accidental contact between humans and cat feces is a risk of infection. For most individuals with competent immunity, infection is asymptomatic and the T. gondii eventually lies dormant as a tissue cyst. For some people primary infection can cause ocular disease, and in pregnant women, it can lead to
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