13
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Antileishmanial activity of Urtica dioica extract against zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Background

          Neglected parasitic diseases (NTDs) like cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) have caused high mortality and morbidity rate in developing countries. This disease is considered as one of the six major tropical diseases, and has a great importance in HIV infected individuals as an opportunistic infection in those areas that both infections are endemic. This study evaluated the therapeutic effects of the Urtica dioica L ( U. dioica) aqueous extract as an anti-leishmanial herbal drug in-vitro and in-vivo, and in addition to that, evaluated two vital immune system cytokines including gamma interferon (IFN-γ) and interleukin-4 (IL-4) plus nitric oxide (NO) and arginase activity against Leishmania major ( L. major) infected mice.

          Methodology/Principal findings

          In-vitro anti-leishmanial activity of U. dioica aqueous extract was determined using MTT method and also Parasite Rescue Transformation Assay. Also, the footpad lesion size and parasite load in BALB/c mice infected with L. major were quantified for in-vivo assessment. Furthermore, for evaluating the immune responses, the levels of IFN-γ, IL-4, NO and arginase were measured in the BALB/c mice. These results indicated that U. dioica extract significantly reduced the L. major promastigotes viability. According to the in-vitro cytotoxicity assay of the extract on Leishmania parasites (CC50) and infected macrophages (EC50), the extract had no toxicity to the macrophages, however it efficiently killed the L. major amastigotes. In addition, the lesion size, parasite load, IL-4, and ARG were decreased in the treated infected mice, however IFN-γ and NO were significantly increased.

          Conclusions/Significance

          This study established satisfactory results in Leishmania parasite clearing both in-vivo and in-vitro. Therefore, U. dioica extract can be considered as an effective and harmless herbal compound for killing the parasite without toxicity to the host macrophages. Furthermore, it also can treat the CL by switching the mouse immune response towards a cell-mediated response (Th1); hence, it may be identified as a perfect therapeutic herbal drug for CL treatment.

          Author summary

          Nowadays, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) like leishmaniasis have increased the mortality and morbidity rate in developing countries, especially in tropical regions, and is considered as responsible for more than 20 million deaths per year. Although, cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is rapidly spreading in all over the world, but this disease controlling has remained insufficient because of low-cost treatment and the lack of an effective vaccine. Therefore, new treatment approaches for leishmaniasis are immediately required. Up to now, application of natural herbal products has been considered as one of the major effective ways in treating the protozoan parasitic infections like CL. In this study, we evaluated the therapeutic effects of the Urtica dioica L ( U. dioica) aqueous extract as an anti-leishmanial herbal drug in-vitro and in-vivo, and also quantified the immune cytokines IFN-γ, IL-4 against CL caused by Leishmania major ( L. major). The in-vitro activity of U. dioica aqueous extract on L. major was determined using MTT method and Parasite Rescue Transformation Assay. Moreover, the footpad lesion size was assessed and parasite load in the mice infected with L. major was quantified for in-vivo. In order to evaluate the immune responses, IFN-γ, IL-4, NO and arginase were measured in the Leishmania infected mice. Accordingly, U. dioica is one of the effective herbal plant in L. major parasite clearing without any harmful toxicity to the murine cells, and can strongly cure the zoonotic CL.

          Related collections

          Most cited references58

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          The relationship between leishmaniasis and AIDS: the second 10 years.

          To date, most Leishmania and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) coinfection cases reported to WHO come from Southern Europe. Up to the year 2001, nearly 2,000 cases of coinfection were identified, of which 90% were from Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal. However, these figures are misleading because they do not account for the large proportion of cases in many African and Asian countries that are missed due to a lack of diagnostic facilities and poor reporting systems. Most cases of coinfection in the Americas are reported in Brazil, where the incidence of leishmaniasis has spread in recent years due to overlap with major areas of HIV transmission. In some areas of Africa, the number of coinfection cases has increased dramatically due to social phenomena such as mass migration and wars. In northwest Ethiopia, up to 30% of all visceral leishmaniasis patients are also infected with HIV. In Asia, coinfections are increasingly being reported in India, which also has the highest global burden of leishmaniasis and a high rate of resistance to antimonial drugs. Based on the previous experience of 20 years of coinfection in Europe, this review focuses on the management of Leishmania-HIV-coinfected patients in low-income countries where leishmaniasis is endemic.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            Leishmaniasis--current chemotherapy and recent advances in the search for novel drugs.

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Complexities of Assessing the Disease Burden Attributable to Leishmaniasis

              Among parasitic diseases, morbidity and mortality caused by leishmaniasis are surpassed only by malaria and lymphatic filariasis. However, estimation of the leishmaniasis disease burden is challenging, due to clinical and epidemiological diversity, marked geographic clustering, and lack of reliable data on incidence, duration, and impact of the various disease syndromes. Non-health effects such as impoverishment, disfigurement, and stigma add to the burden, and introduce further complexities. Leishmaniasis occurs globally, but has disproportionate impact in the Horn of Africa, South Asia and Brazil (for visceral leishmaniasis), and Latin America, Central Asia, and southwestern Asia (for cutaneous leishmaniasis). Disease characteristics and challenges for control are reviewed for each of these foci. We recommend review of reliable secondary data sources and collection of baseline active survey data to improve current disease burden estimates, plus the improvement or establishment of effective surveillance systems to monitor the impact of control efforts.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: SoftwareRole: SupervisionRole: ValidationRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: MethodologyRole: SoftwareRole: ValidationRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: SupervisionRole: ValidationRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Funding acquisitionRole: MethodologyRole: ResourcesRole: SupervisionRole: ValidationRole: Visualization
                Role: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: InvestigationRole: SoftwareRole: Writing – original draft
                Role: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: InvestigationRole: SoftwareRole: Writing – original draft
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS Negl Trop Dis
                PLoS Negl Trop Dis
                plos
                plosntds
                PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1935-2727
                1935-2735
                13 January 2020
                January 2020
                : 14
                : 1
                : e0007843
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Department of Parasitology and Mycology, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
                [2 ] Skin and Stem Cell Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
                [3 ] Cellular and Molecular Biology Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
                [4 ] Department of Medical Microbiology, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
                [5 ] Department of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Amol University of Special Modern Technologies, Amol, Iran
                Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, BRAZIL
                Author notes

                The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2214-8538
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7365-2681
                Article
                PNTD-D-19-00612
                10.1371/journal.pntd.0007843
                6957141
                31929528
                d56e2562-01a6-4a99-8158-b7be72e92c14
                © 2020 Badirzadeh et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 22 April 2019
                : 14 October 2019
                Page count
                Figures: 10, Tables: 2, Pages: 20
                Funding
                Funded by: This work was financially supported by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.
                Award ID: with grant number 12020 and ethical code IR.SBMU.MSP.REC.1397.515 to Vahid Fallah-Omrani. We declare that we have no conflict of interest in relation to this study
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100005851, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences;
                Award ID: 12020
                Award Recipient :
                This work was financially supported by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences with grant number 12020 and ethical code IR.SBMU.MSP.REC.1397.515 to Vahid Fallah-Omrani and Dr. Hossein Dabiri. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Parasitic Diseases
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Cell Biology
                Cellular Types
                Animal Cells
                Blood Cells
                White Blood Cells
                Macrophages
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Cell Biology
                Cellular Types
                Animal Cells
                Immune Cells
                White Blood Cells
                Macrophages
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Immunology
                Immune Cells
                White Blood Cells
                Macrophages
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Immunology
                Immune Cells
                White Blood Cells
                Macrophages
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Eukaryota
                Protozoans
                Parasitic Protozoans
                Leishmania
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Developmental Biology
                Life Cycles
                Protozoan Life Cycles
                Promastigotes
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Microbiology
                Protozoology
                Protozoan Life Cycles
                Promastigotes
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Physiology
                Immune Physiology
                Cytokines
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Physiology
                Immune Physiology
                Cytokines
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Immunology
                Immune System
                Innate Immune System
                Cytokines
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Immunology
                Immune System
                Innate Immune System
                Cytokines
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Developmental Biology
                Molecular Development
                Cytokines
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Biochemistry
                Neurochemistry
                Neurochemicals
                Nitric Oxide
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Neuroscience
                Neurochemistry
                Neurochemicals
                Nitric Oxide
                Research and analysis methods
                Bioassays and physiological analysis
                Biochemical analysis
                Colorimetric assays
                MTT assay
                Research and analysis methods
                Bioassays and physiological analysis
                Biochemical analysis
                Enzyme assays
                MTT assay
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Pharmacology
                Drugs
                Antimicrobials
                Antifungals
                Amphotericin
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Microbiology
                Microbial Control
                Antimicrobials
                Antifungals
                Amphotericin
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Mycology
                Antifungals
                Amphotericin
                Custom metadata
                The data underlying the results presented in the study are available from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (ethical code: IR.SBMU.MSP.REC.1397.515) which is based on the guidelines of the Specific National Ethics for Biochemical Research issued by the Research and Technology Deputy of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME) of Iran (issued 2005).

                Infectious disease & Microbiology
                Infectious disease & Microbiology

                Comments

                Comment on this article