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Potential Anti-leishmanial Activity of a Semi-purified Fraction Isolated from the Leaves of Parthenium hysterophorus

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Abstract

Purpose

In the present perspective, emergence of resistant strains of Leishmania donovani and severe side effects resulting from the use of conventional anti-leishmanial therapies present an urgent need for developing novel agents against this parasite. We have explored the effectiveness of secondary plant metabolites as alternative choices in the treatment for visceral leishmaniasis (vl).

Methods

The plant Parthenium hysterophorus L. (Asteraceae) was collected from the West Bengal State University Campus, Barasat, West Bengal, India. The leaves of this plant were extracted by different solvents, such as ethyl acetate, water, petroleum ether and hexane. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analysis was also carried out for the identification of compounds in the hexane soluble fraction (PHFd) with substantial anti-leishmanial activities. The antipromastigote activity and cytotoxicity of this fraction were evaluated by the tetrazolium MTT assay. Other biochemical and physiological parameters were studied by microscopic observation and flow cytometric analyses.

Results

PHFd showed considerable activity against L. donovani promastigotes (IC50: 20 µg/ml). The PHFd also inhibited in vitro growth of L. major LV39 promastigotes dose dependently with an IC50 of 40 µg/ml. The GC–MS studies of this particular fraction revealed the presence of four major compounds with different retention times (RT) of 26.08, 33.11, 36.41, and 41.20 min. In this study, we also established that PHFd could induce DNA damage and subsequent apoptosis of L. donovani promastigotes with a concomitant increase in generations of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in a time-dependent manner. This fraction was also found to be effective in nitric oxide-mediated inhibition of intracellular amastigotes (IC50:12.5 µg/ml) without any noticeable cytotoxicity towards murine splenocytes in vitro.

Conclusion

This study provides the basis for additional phytochemical and pharmacological studies on the antiprotozoal applications of P. hysterophorus.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Vice Chancellor, West Bengal State University for providing the research infrastructure for this work. We also thank the DST-FIST, Govt. of India [Ref: SR/FST/LS1-001/2014] and DBT-BOOST, Govt. of West Bengal [Ref: 49 (11)/BT (Estt)/1P-4/2013 (Part-1)] for providing funds for the Flowcytometry facility in the Department of Zoology, WBSU, Barasat. We also appreciate the Director, CU BD Centre of Excellence for Nano biotechnology and DBT-IPLS, University of Calcutta, for use of the SEM, and confocal microscopy facilities. The flow cytometric data were analysed by Flowing Software version 2.5 (Perttu Terho, Centre for Biotechnology, Turku, Finland: www.flowingsoftware.com).

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Author notes

  1. Somaditya Dey

    Present address: Post Graduate Department of Zoology, Barasat Government College, Barasat, West Bengal, India

  2. Joydip Ghosh and Sondipon Chakraborty contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cellular Immunology and Experimental Therapeutics Laboratory, Department of Zoology, West Bengal State University, Dt: 24 PGS (N), Barasat, West Bengal, 700126, India

    Joydip Ghosh, Sondipon Chakraborty, Somaditya Dey, Debarati Mukherjee, Biswajyoti Sarkar, Suvadip Mallick, Aritri Dutta & Chiranjib Pal

  2. Wildlife Biology and Natural Product Research Laboratory, Department of Zoology, West Bengal State University, Barasat, West Bengal, India

    Narayan Ghorai

  3. Department of Zoology, University of North Bengal, Darjeeling, West Bengal, India

    Tanmoy Dutta & Soumen Bhattacharjee

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  1. Joydip Ghosh
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Contributions

JG, SC, SD and DM performed the experiments, analysed the data, and wrote the draft manuscript. SM, AD, TD, and BS implemented some additional experiments. NG and SB. helped in designing experiments. CP designed the experiments, analysed the data, and wrote the final manuscript. The manuscript has been read and approved by all the authors.

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Correspondence to Chiranjib Pal.

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Ghosh, J., Chakraborty, S., Dey, S. et al. Potential Anti-leishmanial Activity of a Semi-purified Fraction Isolated from the Leaves of Parthenium hysterophorus. Acta Parasit. 66, 1480–1489 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11686-021-00416-1

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