Susceptibility of Toxoplasma gondii to Ethanolic Extract of Tinospora crispa in Vero Cells

Abstract

Background Toxoplasmosis remains widely distributed globally and is one of the major neglected parasitic zoonotic infections. The infection is still endemic in most parts of the world due to poor control as well as challenges of the currently used medications which can be overcome by using natural products. This study evaluated the effect of ethanolic extract from the stem of Tinospora crispa (EETC) on host cell invasion and intracellular replication of Toxoplasma gondii. Method The stem powder of T. crispa was soaked in absolute ethanol for 72 hours. The resulting ethanolic extract was screened for the presence of phytochemicals. Vero cells monolayer in 96-well plate was infected with RH strain of T. gondii and treated with concentrations of the EETC, Veratrine alkaloid, and clindamycin ranging from 1.56 to 200 μg/mL. MTT assay was conducted after 24 hours to evaluate the cytotoxicity and antiparasitic activities of the EETC. Four and 24 hours treatment models were adapted to assess the infection index and intracellular proliferation of T. Results The study revealed that the EETC had no cytotoxic effects on Vero cells with IC50 = 179 μg/mL, as compared to clindamycin (IC50 = 116.5 μg/mL) and Veratrine alkaloid (IC50 = 60.4 μg/mL). The EETC had good anti-toxoplasma activities with IC50 = 6.31 μg/mL in comparison with clindamycin (IC50 = 8.33 μg/mL) and Veratrine alkaloid (IC50 = 14.25 μg/mL). The EETC caused more than 70% and 80% reduction in infection index and intracellular proliferation in both treatment models, respectively. Conclusion This in vitro study showed that the EETC contains promising phytochemicals effective against T. gondii and safe to the host cells.

In Vitro and In Vivo Anti-Toxoplasma Activities of Dracocephalum kotschyi Extract in Experimental Models of Acute Toxoplasmosis

“…Indeed, several medicinal plants have been reported in the traditional treatment of toxoplasmosis. Also, several pharmacological studies demonstrated the ability of medicinal plant extracts to inhibit in vitro and in vivo the growth of T. gondii [1,[7][8][9][10][11].…”

Antioxidant activity of Tinospora crispa extracted with different ethanol solvents

“…11 The use of ethanol 99.9% showed also relatively lower yield (15.08 % (W/W)). 12 Another study using 70% ethanol indicated a yield which was 19.34 % (W/W). 13 Comparison to the yield from further fractionation processes such as n-hexane and water solvent showed that our result was relatively higher than the yield from n-hexane fractionation by Irianti and Warsinah that indicating 24.1 % (W/W) 9 and 22.06 % (W/W) respectively.…”

In vitro biological activity of extracts from marine bacteria cultures against Toxoplasma gondii and Mycobacterium tuberculosis

“…For the proliferation evaluation, the HFF‐1 cells were infected with tachyzoites for 1 h, then washed and treated for 24 h with the extracts (posttreatment). Once the infection hours were completed, the culture was washed gently three times with medium RPMI without foetal bovine serum (FBS) to eliminate extracellular parasites (Leesombun et al, 2016; Sharif et al, 2019). Finally, the cells were observed with a fluorescence microscope using an optical zoom (20×) and four photographs per field were taken.…”