Therapeutic effect of herbal medicine Fenchone on Leishmania major in vitro

Abstract

Introduction: Leishmaniasis is parasitic diseases with widely spread in world. Leishmania major and L. tropica cause cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL). Clinically, lesions caused by L. major last longer. This study was designed to evaluate the leishmanicidal activity of fenchone as a plant extract on L. major stages.
Materials & Methods: Various concentrations of fenchone against L. major stages by MTT assay and macrophage model were used and the inhibitory concentration 50 (IC50) was calculated by counting of the parasites. For intramacrophage amastigotes, the leishmanicidal activity was evaluated by the mean number of amastigotes and IC50 values.
Results: The findings showed that extract of fenchone inhibited the proliferation rate of Promastigotes and amastigotes (P<0.001). The mean IC50 values of amastigotes for fenchone were 82 vs. 175.1 (μg/ml) glucantime. Also, the mean IC50 values of promastigotes for
fenchone were 180 vs. 613 (μg/ml) glucantime. The SI index for Fenchone was 9.6, while that for glucantime was 8.24.
Conclusion: This study revealed that extract of fenchone prevented the development of the promastigotes and amastigotes. Also, toxicity of fenchone is less than standard drug (glucantime).