Abstract
BackgroundWorldwide particularly in developing countries, a large proportion of the population is at risk for tropical parasitic diseases. Several medicinal plants are still used traditionally against protozoal infections in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Thus the present study investigated the in vitro antiprotozoal activity of twenty-five plants collected from the Arabian Peninsula.MethodsPlant materials were extracted with methanol and screened in vitro against erythrocytic schizonts of Plasmodium falciparum, intracellular amastigotes of Leishmania infantum and Trypanosoma cruzi and free trypomastigotes of T. brucei. Cytotoxic activity was determined against MRC-5 cells to assess selectivity. The criterion for activity was an IC50 < 10 μg/ml (<5 μg/ml for T. brucei) and selectivity index of >4.ResultsAntiplasmodial activity was found in the extracts of Chrozophora oblongifolia, Ficus ingens, Lavandula dentata and Plectranthus barbatus. Amastigotes of T. cruzi were affected by Grewia erythraea, L. dentata, Tagetes minuta and Vernonia leopoldii. Activity against T. brucei was obtained in G. erythraea, L. dentata, P. barbatus and T. minuta. No relevant activity was found against L. infantum. High levels of cytotoxicity (MRC-5 IC50 < 10 μg/ml) and hence non-specific activities were noted in Cupressus sempervirens, Kanahia laniflora and Kniphofia sumarae.ConclusionThe results endorse that medicinal plants can be promising sources of natural products with antiprotozoal activity potential. The results support to some extent the traditional uses of some plants for the treatment of parasitic protozoal diseases.
Highlights
Worldwide in developing countries, a large proportion of the population is at risk for tropical parasitic diseases
A lot of research is committed to leishmaniasis, malaria, Chagas disease and sleeping sickness, because they are major killing diseases and because disease control becomes more difficult due to a number of factors that limit the utility of current drugs in resource-poor settings
Crude methanol extracts from 25 plant species belonging to 18 families that are used in Arabian traditional medicine, were evaluated in the integrated in vitro screen for antileishmanial, antiplasmodial and antitrypanosomal potential (Table 2)
Summary
Worldwide in developing countries, a large proportion of the population is at risk for tropical parasitic diseases. Today over one billion people worldwide are at risk for tropical diseases caused by parasitic organisms. It is estimated that two thirds of the world population still rely on traditional medical remedies, mainly plants, because of limited availability and affordability of pharmaceutical medicines [5]. This explains why a lot of current research focuses on natural molecules and plant-derived products as they can be sourced are locally available and can be selected on the basis of their ethnomedicinal use [6]
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