Abstract:
Abstract
Background: Medicinal plants have contributed significantly to current malaria treatment. Alarming signs of emerging resistance to currently available drugs has necessitated the search for new plant based antimalarial agents and several plant based, pharmacologically active anti-malarial compounds have been isolated. This study was conducted to validate the traditional usage of C.simensis for treating malaria in the traditional health care system of Ethiopia.
Methods: The roots of C.simensis were collected around Gondar town, 738km North West Ethiopia. After collection, the plant materials were identified by a taxonomist, dried under shade and crushed to powder. The powdered roots were extracted by maceration using 80 % methanol and fractionated using n-hexane, chloroform and distilled water. Acute toxicity study of the crude extract was carried out in female Swiss albino mice. The in vivo anti-malarial activities of crude, aqueous, chloroform and n-hexane fractions (100, 200,400 and 600 mg/kg) of C.simensis roots against a chloroquine (CQ) sensitive strain of P. berghei strain ANKA was evaluated using the four-day suppressive and curative test procedures. Parameters such as parasitemia, packed cell volume, rectal temperature, body weight and survival time were then determined.
Results: The 4-day suppressive oral administration test of the 600mg/kg methanolic crude extract (P <0.001) and 400mg/kg chloroform fraction (P <0.01) showed significant parasitemia reduction compared with the negative control. And their respective percentage suppressions were 53.54 and 26.45. Additionally, the curative test of chloroform fraction achieved significant parasitemia reduction for 600mg/kg (P <0.001) and 400mg/kg (P <0.05) in relation with negative control. The activities of all the extracts on P. berghei-infected mice were increased in a dose-dependent manner. Its oral LD50 was found to be greater than 2000 mg/kg.
Conclusion: The result revealed the methanolic crude extract and chloroform fraction of C.simensis roots have anti-malarial activities against P. berghei in an animal model and supports the use of the plant to combat malaria in Ethiopian folk medicine. Further work is necessary to isolate, identify and characterize the active principles from the plant material.
Keywords: In-vivo, Anti-malarial, C.simensis, crude extract, solvent fractions P. berghei, 4-day suppressive, curative and phytochemicals.
