Effects of Piper longum fruit, Piper sarmentosum root and Quercus infectoria nut gall on caecal amoebiasis in mice
Introduction
Among parasitic infections, amoebiasis ranks third worldwide in lethal infection, after malaria and schistosomiasis (Walsh, 1988, Petri and Mann, 1993). Although it is asymptomatic in 90% of cases, about 50 million people are estimated to suffer from the symptoms of amoebiasis such as haemorrhagic colitis and amoebic liver abscess (Ravdin, 1995). These infections result in 50 000–100 000 deaths annually. In South Africa and India, the disease is rather common (Walsh, 1986).
During 1987–1997, in Thailand, there were more than 50 000 cases of dysentery reported each year and approximately 400 people died. For about 90% of the cases, the cause of dysentery is unknown; however, Entamoeba histolytica was detected in 2–3% of cases (Anon, 1997). Among children under five years who were admitted with acute diarrhea in a hospital, Entamoeba histolytica was confirmed in 7.8% of the cases (Suwatana, 1997). The estimated number of infected cases may be much higher due to the lack of a sensitive and specific diagnostic test (Petri et al., 2000).
The most effective and commonly used drug for treatment of intestinal protozoa infection is metronidazole (Tracy and Webster, 1996). However, this drug has been reported to cause mutagenicity in bacteria (Legator et al., 1975) and is carcinogenic in rodents (Rustia and Shubik, 1972, Shubik, 1972). It has been reported that the human pathogenic bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, becomes resistant to metronidazole in vitro (Zwet et al., 1994). Moreover, it seems to act as an immunosuppressive agent in experimental rats, both in cell-mediated and humoral immune responses (Saxena et al., 1985). These are the main reason why there is a need to develop a safe and effective alternative antiamoebic agent.
For people in developing countries, medicinal plants are popular because their products are safe and widely available at low cost. Some compounds extracted from medicinal plants already play an important role against infectious diseases e.g. quinine from Cinchona sp., and artemisinin from Artemisia annua; both are effective against malaria. In the present study, Piper longum (Linn.) fruit (Plf), Piper sarmentosum (Roxb.) root (Psr) and Quercus infectoria (Oliv.) nut gall (Qin) were selected because these species are routinely used to cure bloody diarrhea in Thai traditional medical practice. It is, therefore, of interest to scientifically evaluate their effect on amoebiasis for potential antiamoebic activity in vivo. The selected plants were extracted with methanol and tested against caecal amoebiasis in mice. The anti-amoebic effect of the extract was compared with the standard drug metronidazole.
Section snippets
Isolation and cultivation of Entamoeba histolytica
The culture of Entamoeba histolytica used in this experiment was isolated from the bloody stool diarrhea of a patient from Maharaj hospital, Nakorn Srithamarat, Thailand. Briefly, the untreated fecal samples were collected after diagnosis as Entamoeba histolytica infection and cultured in Boeck & Drbohlav medium with some modification as described elsewhere (Sawangjaroen et al., 1993). Calf bovine donor serum (10%) was used instead of horse serum. The culture was incubated at 37 °C and Entamoeba
Results and discussion
The effects of extracts from Plf, Psr and Qin against experimental caecal amoebiasis in mice are shown in Table 1. The results from the present study demonstrate that methanol extracts from selected medicinal plants are effective against Entamoeba histolytica in mice as evaluated by the number of mice cured and the reduction of severity of the mice caecal content and caecal wall lesions in comparison to the untreated mice. The anti-amoebic effects of all extracts are clearly dose-dependent.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for financial support by the Faculty of Science, Prince of Songkla University.
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