Antiparasitic Efficacy of Curcumin Against Besnoitia besnoiti Tachyzoites in vitro

Abstract

Besnoitia besnoiti is the causative agent of bovine besnoitiosis. B. besnoiti infections lead to reduced fertility and productivity in cattle causing high economic losses, not only in Europe, but also in Asia and Africa. Mild to severe clinical signs, such as anasarca, oedema, orchitis, hyperkeratosis, and characteristic skin and mucosal cysts, are due to B. besnoiti tachyzoite and bradyzoite replication in intermediate host tissues. So far, there are no commercially available effective drugs against this parasite. Curcumin, a polyphenolic compound from Curcuma longa rhizome is well-known for its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and also anti-protozoan effects. Hence, the objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of curcumin on viability, motility, invasive capacity, and proliferation of B. besnoiti tachyzoites replicating in primary bovine umbilical vein endothelial cells (BUVEC) in vitro. Functional inhibition assays revealed that curcumin treatments reduce tachyzoite viability and induce lethal effects in up to 57% of tachyzoites (IC50 in 5.93 μM). Referring to general motility, significant dose-dependent effects of curcumin treatments were observed. Interestingly, curcumin treatments only dampened helical gliding and twirling activities whilst longitudinal gliding motility was not significantly affected. In addition, curcumin pretreatments of tachyzoites resulted in a dose-dependent reduction of host cell invasion as detected by infections rates at 1 day p. i. These findings demonstrate feeding cattle with Curcuma longa rhizomes may represent a new strategy for besnoitiosis treatment.

Ezetimibe blocksToxoplasma gondii-,Neospora caninum- andBesnoitia besnoiti-tachyzoite infectivity and replication in primary bovine endothelial host cells

“…For experiments on parasite viability, 5 × 10 5 tachyzoites of each parasite species were treated for 1 h with vehicle (DMSO 0.06%) or ezetimibe (20 μ m ) (37°C, 5% CO 2 ). Thereafter, viability of tachyzoites was determined by the trypan blue (Sigma-Aldrich ® ) exclusion staining assay as described elsewhere (Cervantes-Valencia et al ., 2019 ). Non-stained parasites were considered as viable.…”

P-Glycoprotein Inhibitors Differently Affect Toxoplasma gondii, Neospora caninum and Besnoitia besnoiti Proliferation in Bovine Primary Endothelial Cells

“…Additionally, for experiments on parasite viability, 5 × 10 5 tachyzoites of each parasite species were treated for 1 h with each of the studied compounds (verapamil 40 µM, valspodar 5 µM and tariquidar 2 µM; 37 °C, 5% CO 2 ). Viability of tachyzoites was determined by the trypan blue (Sigma-Aldrich) exclusion staining assay [ 60 ]. Non-stained parasites were considered as viable.…”

Curcumin effect on Acanthamoeba triangularis encystation under nutrient starvation

“…Regarding a long history of medicinal use of curcumin, it contains several pharmacological activities, for example, anti-inflammatory ( Wal et al, 2019 ), antioxidant ( Jakubczyk et al, 2020 ), anti-cancer ( Vallianou et al, 2015 ; Tomeh, Hadianamrei & Zhao, 2019 ), and antimicrobial activities ( Cui, Miao & Cui, 2007 ; Martins et al, 2009 ; Teow et al, 2016 ; Yang et al, 2016 ; Mitsuwan et al, 2020 ). For its anti-parasitic effect, the curcumin has been very-well studied in many parasites for example Schistosomiasis mansoni ( de Paula Aguiar et al, 2016 ; Hussein et al, 2017 ), Besnoitia besnoiti ( Cervantes-Valencia et al, 2019 ), Giardia lamblia ( Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez et al, 2017 ), Leishmania major ( Koide et al, 2002 ), Plasmodium falciparum ( Cui, Miao & Cui, 2007 ; Mishra et al, 2008 ), and Trypanosoma cruzi ( Novaes et al, 2016 ). However, the killing mechanism by curcumin has been partially characterized in some parasites, but in Acanthamoeba , the documentation is largely unidentified.…”