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In vitro antiplasmodial and phytochemical study of five Artemisia species from Iran and in vivo activity of two species

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Abstract

The extract from Artemisia annua, containing artemisinin, has been proven active against multidrug resistant Plasmodium falciparum in previous studies. The purpose of this paper was to study five Artemisia species from Iran for their in vitro and in vivo antimalarial property and detection of artemisinin in the active species by chromatographic and spectroscopic methods including nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Dried plants were extracted by 80% ethanol, and total extracts were investigated for antiplasmodial property and artemisinin content by TLC, HPLC, and 1H-NMR techniques. Two plants (A. annua L. and Artemisia absinthium L.) showed good antiplasmodial activity against multidrug resistant and sensitive strain of P. falciparum. A. absinthium and A. annua at concentrations of 200 mg/kg for 4 days reduced parasitemia in BALB/C mice infected with Plasmodium bergei by 94.28% and 83.28%, respectively, but we could not detect artemisinin in all plants studied in this research. The antiplasmodial property of these two herbs is possibly related to essential oils that present in high amounts in their extracts.

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Acknowledgments

Authors wish to thank Pasteur Institute of Iran for partial financial funding and support of the project (Grant no. 289). In addition, the authors would like to express their appreciation to Blood Transfusion Organization, Tehran, Iran for providing the blood and serum in this project. The authors are grateful to Professor M. Hommel (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine) and Dr. H. Baseri (Department of Medical Entomology, School of Public Health, Tehran University) for providing K1, CY27 strains of P. falciparum and P. berghei (ANKA), respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Malaria and Vector Research Group, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, #69 Pasteur Ave., Tehran, Iran, 13164-43551

    Ali Ramazani & Sedigheh Zakeri

  2. Drug Design and Bioinformatics, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, #69 Pasteur Ave., Tehran, Iran, 13164-43551

    Soroush Sardari

  3. Protein Chemistry Unit, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, #69 Pasteur Ave., Tehran, Iran, 13164-43551

    Behrouz Vaziri

  4. Biotechnology Department, School of Pharmacy, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran

    Ali Ramazani

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  1. Ali Ramazani
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  2. Soroush Sardari
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  3. Sedigheh Zakeri
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  4. Behrouz Vaziri
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Correspondence to Soroush Sardari.

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Ramazani, A., Sardari, S., Zakeri, S. et al. In vitro antiplasmodial and phytochemical study of five Artemisia species from Iran and in vivo activity of two species. Parasitol Res 107, 593–599 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-010-1900-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-010-1900-4

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