Artemisia afra (Jacq. Ex. Wild), or "African Wormwood" belonging to the family of Astereaces and is widely used traditionally for health care in the eastern part of Africa with few research evidence substantiating its safety. The aim of this study was to investigate the safety of the ethanolic, dichloromethane, and hexanolic extracts of Artemisia afra by determining its pharmaco-toxicological effects after an acute oral administration in mice and to test also their in vivo antimalarial effects. Oral acute doses of Artemisia afra extracts were given to thirty mice at the doses of 1000, 2000 and 2500 mg/kg of body weight. The mice were then observed for fourteen days, toxicity signs, body weight, organs weight and biochemical parameters were checked. Four days peter's test was run on mice to determine the in vivo antimalarial activity of the plant extracts and the IC50 for each extract was determined. The results show few toxicity signs from the first two days after oral administration. There were no differences in organs weight and body weight for the experimental mice when compared to the control group. The level of alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST) were found do not be statistically different from the control. The LD 50 of the extracts was found to be greater than 2500 mg/kg of body weight. The results also showed a high antimalarial effect of the extracts when tested in vivo using Plasmodium Berghei Anka. In Conclusion Artemisia afra is a strong drug candidate for malaria with no toxic effects in high dosage.
The emergence and spread of drug resistance of the malaria parasite to the main treatment emphasize the need to develop new antimalarial drugs. In this context, the fatty acid biosynthesis (FAS_II) pathway of the malaria parasite is one of the ideal targets due to its crucial role in parasite survival. In this study, we report the expression and the a nity binding of Fab_I and Fab_Z after exposure of the parasite with different extracts of the Artemisia afra. The parasites were exposed for 2 days to different extracts. Gene expression was done to determine the level of expression of the fab enzymes after treatments. A GCMS was run to determine the different compounds of the plant extracts followed by a virtual screening between the fab enzymes and the active compounds using Pyrex. The results showed different expression patterns of the Fab enzymes. Fab_I was downregulated in the W2 and D6 strains by the ethanolic extract but was increased by Hexane and DCM extracts. A different expression pattern was observed for Fab_Z. it was all upregulated except in the D6 strain when exposed to the ethanolic and hexane extracts. Virtual screening showed a nity with many compounds. Hits compounds with high binding energy were detected. 11alphaHydroxyprogesterone and Aspidospermidin-17-ol were found to have high binding energy with Fab_I respectively (-10.7 kcal/mol; -10.2kcal/mol). Fab_Z shows also high a nity with 11alpha-Hydroxyprogesterone (-10kcal/mol) and Thiourea . These results demonstrate the potential of A. afra as a big source of new antimalarial drugs.
The emergence and spread of drug resistance of the malaria parasite to the main treatment emphasize the need to develop new antimalarial drugs. In this context, the fatty acid biosynthesis (FAS_II) pathway of the malaria parasite is one of the ideal targets due to its crucial role in parasite survival. In this study, we report the expression and the affinity binding of Fab_I and Fab_Z after exposure of the parasite with different extracts of the Artemisia afra. The parasites were exposed for 2 days to different extracts. Gene expression was done to determine the level of expression of the fab enzymes after treatments. A GCMS was run to determine the different compounds of the plant extracts followed by a virtual screening between the fab enzymes and the active compounds using Pyrex. The results showed different expression patterns of the Fab enzymes. Fab_I was downregulated in the W2 and D6 strains by the ethanolic extract but was increased by Hexane and DCM extracts. A different expression pattern was observed for Fab_Z. it was all upregulated except in the D6 strain when exposed to the ethanolic and hexane extracts. Virtual screening showed affinity with many compounds. Hits compounds with high binding energy were detected. 11alphaHydroxyprogesterone and Aspidospermidin-17-ol were found to have high binding energy with Fab_I respectively (-10.7 kcal/mol; -10.2kcal/mol). Fab_Z shows also high affinity with 11alpha-Hydroxyprogesterone (-10kcal/mol) and Thiourea (-8.4 Kcal/mol). These results demonstrate the potential of A. afra as a big source of new antimalarial drugs.
Background:The emergence and spread of drug resistance of the malaria parasite to the main treatment emphasis the need to develop new antimalarial drugs. In this context, the fatty acid biosynthesis (FAS_II) pathway of the malaria parasite is one of the ideal target due to its crucial role in parasite survival.Method:We report in this study the expression and the affinity binding of two Fab enzymes (FabI and FabZ) after exposure of the parasite using different extracts of the Artemisia afra and after a virtual screening with the different plant compounds. Two differents strains of Plasmodium falciparum was used: W2 (CQ_resistant) and D6 (CQ_sensitive) with a parasiteamia of 4%. The parasites were exposed during 2 days to different Artemisia afra extracts . Gene expression was done to determine the level of expression of the fab enzymes after treatments. A GCMS was run to determine the different compounds of the plant extracts following by a virtual screening between the fab enzymes and the active compounds using Pyrex. Result:The results showed different expression patterns of the Fab enzymes. FabI was downregulated in the W2 and D6 strains by the ethanolic extract in a higher rate for W2. Hexane and DCM extracts increased the production of FabI respectively in W2 and D6 strains. A different expression pattern was observed for Fab Z. The expression of FabZ in the W2 strain were all upregulated. The enzyme was downregulated only in the D6 strain when exposed to the ethanolic and hexane extracts of the plant. After virtual screening, a lot of compounds were found to interact with the two fab enzymes. Hits compounds for FabI and FabZ with high biding energy were detected. 11alpha-Hydroxyprogesterone and Aspidospermidin-17-ol were found to have high binding energy with FabI respectively (-10.7 kcal/mol; -10.2kcal/mol). Fab Z was having also a high affinity with the two following hits compounds: 11alpha-Hydroxyprogesterone (-10 kcal/mol) and Thiourea (-8.4 Kcal/mol). Conclusion:The study showed that Artemisia afra is a big source of antimalarial drugs, and could act not only as a curative but also as prophylactic due to its effects on the Fab enzymes.
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