Study of antileishmania activity of different extracts of Cichorium intybus against Leishmania major (MRHO/IR/75/ER) promastigotes

Subject Areas : biology

mitra  nasrazadani ¹ (student)
mohsen  zargar ² (Associate Professor)
monir  doudi ³ (Associate Professor)
Parisa  shoaei ⁴ (Expert)

Received: 2014-06-08 Accepted : 2014-08-01 Published : 2014-06-22

Keywords: chicory (Cichorium intybus), "Leishmania major, MTT formazan",

Abstract :

Background:Leishmaniasis induced by protozoa of the genus Leishmania can be evaluated as a zoonotic disease. this study was conducted to evaluate the effect of alcoholic,Aqueousand hexane extracts ofCichorium intybusleafagainst promastigotes of Leishmania by invitro assay using MTT. Objective:The aim of this study was to find newnatural drug that can inhibite promastigotes of Leishmania,without side effects.Materials and Methods:The extracts were preparedby percolation method. The extracts were dried and solved in DMSO 5% solvent. Leishmania majorpromastigotes were cultured at 25±2°C in stationary phase in RPMI-1640 medium complemented with 10% fetal calf serum (FCS) and antibiotic Penicillin-Streptomycin (10,000 U/mL). Then, the biological activity of plant extracts in analogy to glucantime on L.majorpromastigotes were evaluated using MTT method. The optical density (OD by the parasite was measured using ELISA reader and IC50 values (50% inhibitory concentrations) were evaluated. All tests were repeated in Triplicate.Results:IC50 of glucantime was616/18 μg/ml,and IC50 values foralcoholic, aqueous andhexzane extracts were shown 1094μg/ml,2383/38μg/ml and2577/69μg/ml, respectively. Although glucantime was more effective than plant extracts, all extracts have shown inhibition effects on promastigotes of L.major.Conclusion:As regards, plant extracts: alcoholic, aqueous andhexzane extracts of chicory (Cichorium intybus) have anti-leishmanial effects in vitro further works are required to appraise the exact effect of these extracts on Leishmania agents in animal models.