In Vitro Anthelmintic Activity of Saponins from Medicago spp. Against Sheep Gastrointestinal Nematodes

Abstract

Gastrointestinal strongyle nematodes (GIS) are included among the most important parasites of small ruminants. The widespread drug resistance and drug residues in products of animal origin have increased the interest in the search for natural compounds with anthelmintic activity as a valid alternative to current synthetic drugs. The aim of the present investigation was to test the ‘in vitro’ anthelmintic activity of saponins and prosapogenins from different Medicago species, selected for their importance as a forage crop worldwide for animal feeding. From these plants, saponin mixtures were extracted, purified and used at scalar concentrations to evaluate their anthelmintic activities against sheep gastrointestinal strongyles (GISs), by the egg hatch test. Treated and untreated controls were used as the comparison. Data were statistically analyzed, and EC50 and EC90 were also calculated. All saponins and prosapogenins showed inhibiting effects on GIS eggs in a concentration-dependent manner. At higher concentrations, most of them showed an efficacy comparable to the reference drug (Thiabendazole 3 µg/mL) (P < 0.001). With 1.72 mg/mL EC50 and 3.84 mg/mL EC90, saponin from M. polymorpha cultivars Anglona was the most active. Obtained results encourage further studies aimed at evaluating the efficacy ‘in vivo’ of saponins which resulted as most effective ‘in vitro’ in this study.

Activity of Saponins from Medicago Species against Phytoparasitic Nematodes

“…Saponins were acknowledged for a wide range of biological activities, including a cytotoxic, antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and molluscicidal activity [8,9]. In addition, a high anthelmintic activity against gastrointestinal nematodes from donkey [10] and goats [11] was also proved for alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) saponin mixtures.…”

Chemical characterization and in vitro biological activity of Cymbopogon citratus extracts against Haemonchus spp. and Trichostrongylus spp. nematodes from sheep

“…Citral and lemonene (Macedo et al ., 2010), linalool and carvacrol (Zhu et al ., 2013), essential oil (Armstrong et al ., 2013), carvacrol (Andre et al ., 2016), thymol, carvacrol and eugenol (Hernando et al ., 2019), triterpenoids identified as urs-19(29)-en-3-yl acetate, (3 β )-Urs-19(29)-en-3-ol and 1-(2’,5’-dimethoxy phenyl)-glycerol (Cavalcante et al ., 2016), triterpenoid glycosides (saponins) identified as joazeiroside B and lotoside A (Gomes et al ., 2016) were some of the related compounds. Besides, other saponins revealed the presence of in vitro anthelmintic activity against nematodes eggs of goat (Botura et al ., 2013; Santos et al ., 2018), donkey (Maestrini et al ., 2019), sheep (Maestrini et al ., 2020) and L 3 of goat (Santos et al ., 2018). In a similar way, β -sitosterol steroid demonstrated anthelmintic activity against Ascaris suum (Villaseñor et al ., 2002) and sheep gastrointestinal nematodes (Giovanelli et al ., 2018).…”

Ovine haemonchosis: a review

“…Another most recent study found a significant inhibition of hatchability of H. contortus eggs with the use of saponins extracted from forage plants of 'Medicago' species (Maestrini et al 2020). The sheep experimentally infected with H. contortus and supplemented with yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae for a period of 49 days showed a significant reduction of larvae and a higher number of circulating antibodies (Pinto et al 2020).…”