Anti-Leishmanial Activity of Artemisia persica, , and against .

Background: Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) like zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL), is a widespread infectious disease with high mortality and morbidity. Various medications are used for treating the disease, but several side effects and drug resistance have been reported. Herbal medicines are unlimited sources for discovering new medications to treat infectious diseases. We aimed to determine the leishmanicidal activity of three species of Iranian herbal plant extracts in in-vitro.

Methods: In-vitro anti-leishmanial activity of ethanolic extracts on both promastigotes and amastigotes was determined by using MTT method. IC50, CC50, EC50 and SI were calculated. The study was done in 2019-2020 in Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Results: All of the three species significantly reduced the number of parasite promastigotes. Among them, had the highest leishmanicidal activity against parasite promastigotes. Cytotoxicity assay elucidated that the had no toxicity to the host cells, and killed the amastigotes very efficiently. By increasing the dose of extracts, the parasite number in both phases (promastigotes and amastigotes) was reduced significantly.

Conclusion: These results indicated satisfactory anti-leishmanial activity of extracts against ZCL in-vitro. Accordingly, ethanolic extracts might be considered as a strong, effective and safe herbal compound for clearing the with less toxicity to the host macrophages cells. Hence, it may be recognized as an excellent herbal therapy for treating the ZCL.