Antifungal activities of Astragalus verus Olivier. against Trichophyton verrucosum on in vitro and in vivo guinea pig model of dermatophytosis

Abstract

Astragalus verus Olivier, Fabaceae has been used against ringworm in Kurdish ethnomedicine throughout millennia. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of A. verus extracts against Trichophyton verrucosum on in vitro and in vivo guinea pig model of dermatophytosis. The skin of albino guinea pigs was infected with T. verrucosum (1.0×10(7) conidia) and animals were divided into five groups (n=5 for each): negative control (NC), received a vehicle; positive control (PC), received topical terbinafine 1.0% and three other groups: AE10%, AE20% and AE40% which received topical 10%, 20% and 40% aqueous extract of A. verus, respectively. Evaluation of clinical efficacy was performed 72h after completion of a 7-day treatment regimen. Higher significant antifungal activities were observed in aqueous extract in the concentration 320 mg ml(-1) compared with acetone and methanol extracts. The aqueous extract showed minimum inhibitory concentration at 160 mg ml(-1) . Lower clinical scores indicate improved efficacy compared with NC. The lesion scores significantly declined in AE20%, AE40% and PC groups in comparison with NC group. The lesion scores in AE10% and AE20% groups were significantly higher than that of PC group. The AE10% group (18.3%) and AE20% group (39.43%) and AE40% group (66.19%) showed clinical efficacies compared with PC group (76.05%). In conclusion, aqueous extract showed promising antidermatophytic activity.

Animal Model of Dermatophytosis

“…The tinea corporis animal model was used to estimate the efficacy of antifungal agents like bifonazole [21, 22, 25, 26, 35, 46, 52], clotrimazole [22, 23, 25, 35, 37, 40, 46, 52], miconazole [37, 44], tolnaftate [12, 22, 25, 37, 40], griseofulvin [28, 29, 37, 40, 65], ketoconazole [12, 18, 20, 29, 37, 40], omoconazole [32, 36], terbinafine [26, 29, 40, 41, 47, 48, 50, 58, 65], econazole [40], butenafine [22, 23, 33], naftifine [22], itraconazole [20, 27, 41, 50, 51, 59, 65], amorolfine [21, 65], sertaconazole [44], saperconazole [24], latoconazole [25], fluconazole [27, 28, 31, 41, 65], SCH 39304 [31, 54], lanoconazole [30, 33, 48], mupirocin [18], laudamonium [17], KP-103 [33], neticonazole [33], R126638 [59], voriconazole [57], ciclopirox [58], pramiconazole [50], luliconazole [48], and Astragalus verus Olivier [45]. …”

In vivo anti-<b><i>Trichophyton</i></b> Activities of Seed Oil Obtained from <b><i>Caragana</i></b><b><i>korshinskii</i></b> Kom.

“…In this study, T. mentagrophytes was selected as the infecting fungus because it is one of the major causative organisms associated with dermatophytosis. T. mentagrophytes exhibited a maximum degree of erythema and infiltration at the inoculation site in experimentally inoculated guinea pigs between the 9th and 14th day of the development of delayed hypersensitivity; after that there was regression, and 4 weeks later the lesions were healed, which suggests the participation of the immune response in the resolution of lesions [11,13]. The host antifungal response against dermatophytosis is considered to involve the antidermatophyte activity of iron-unsaturated transferrin in serum, the activation of phagocytes, neutrophils, and macrophages in the infected areas of the skin that display direct killing activity against Trichophyton spp.…”

“…Dermatophytosis was induced by a slight modification of the procedure of Ghannoum and colleagues [13,28,29]. Briefly, the guinea pigs were anesthetized intramuscularly (0.2 ml per animal) with an anesthetic cocktail (acepromazine, ketamine, and xylazine, 1:3:3 v/v/v).…”

“…A number of medicinal plants have been investigated extensively to achieve higher levels of human safety standards, since they display antimicrobial properties which can protect the human body against pathogens. Their essential oils and extracts have a wide array of biological activities, especially antimicrobial effects on different groups of pathogenic organisms [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. …”

In vitro and in vivo antifungal activity, liver profile test, and mutagenic activity of five plants used in traditional Mexican medicine

“…However, the extracts displayed much weaker activity than the commonly used synthetic anti-dermatophyte drugs, and only a small number of these extracts have been evaluated in experimental models, which limits the use of these extracts as potential therapeutic agents (Evron et al, 1990;Mikaeili et al, 2012).…”