Title: Evaluation of Tanacetum parthenium cytotoxicity on Leishmania infatum and L. major
Abstract: Over 20 Leishmania species are transmitted by infected female phlebotomine sandflies causing visceral, cutaneous and mucocutaneous infections. The first line treatments of leishmaniasis are still pentavalent antimonials developed more than 50 years ago which are highly toxic and prone to resistance. Currently 1.5 – 2 million new cases of leishmaniasis are reported annually and lack of an effective and safe drug to cure the disease remains a concern. Recent research has focused on plant components for discovery of new medicines. Tanacetum parthenium, known as feverfew, has long been used in folk medicine and recent studies have reported it as a biologically active herb. The in vitro activity of T. parthenium against Leishmania amazonensis [1] and cancer [2] are attributed to its sesquiterpene lactones [3], particularly parthenolide. In this research, we evaluated the cytotoxic effect of the hydroalcoholic extract of T. parthenium on promastigotes of L. infatum and L. major compared to the drugs glucantime and luteolin. The content of parthenolide in the crude extract was also quantified by HPLC. The extract showed 50% inhibition of L. infatum cell growth at concentrations of 4.5, 1.9 and 1.1 mg/ml and after 24, 48 and 72h incubation, respectively. For L. major, these values were 4, 1.8 and 0.9 mg/ml, respectively. The results demonstrated that the crude extract was considerably more effective than glucantime and luteolin. Based on HPLC analysis the dry leaves contained 0.74%w/w parthenolide. Since T. parthenium is an edible and safe herb, this study indicates that it could be a potential candidate for further investigations on its antileishmanial effects.
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-12-14
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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