Antileishmanial potential of Chondrococcus hornemanni against experimental visceral leishmaniasis

Abstract

Exploration of safe and effective antileishmanials from natural resources is an active area of research. Therefore we have selected C. hornemanni to evaluate its antileishmanial potential. The crude ethanol extract and its fractions were tested both in vitro and in vivo. The crude ethanol extract yielded almost (88.0 ± 6.9% inhibition of promastigotes and 75.8 ± 5.2% inhibition of intracellular amastigotes at 100 μg/ml concentration with IC₅₀ values of 29.5 μg/ml and 40.6 μg/ml, respectively. When administered to Leishmania donovani infected hamsters at a dose of 250 mg/kg×5, p.o., it exerted 75.38 ± 5.2% inhibition of multiplication of amastigotes. At a lower dose (100 mg/kg), it did not have any effect. Among all the fractions (hexane, choloroform and n-butanol soluble fractions and n-butanol insoluble fraction of the crude ethanol extract). The n-butanol soluble fraction of the crude ethanol extract was the most effective (>78%) against promastigotes and intracellular amastigotes in vitro with IC₅₀ values of 54.2 μg/ml and 61 μg/ml, respectively. The chromatographic fractions (F011 & F012) exerted inhibition 76.2 ± 6.5% and 56.7 ± 10.2% respectively at 100 mg/kg.p.o. in vivo. On chemical analysis of chromatographic active fraction containing ChondrocoleA,Chondrocole B and Chondrocolactone, Mimosamycin, Xestospongin-C, Xestospongin-D and Araguspongin-C were identified as major compounds by LC-MS.