Screening North American plant extracts in vitro against Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent for Human African Trypanosomiasis

Authors: JAIN, SURENDRA - University Of Mississippi; JACOB, MELISSA - University Of Mississippi; WALKER, LARRY - University Of Mississippi; TEKWANI, BABU - University Of Mississippi

Submitted to: BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/13/2016
Publication Date: 5/18/2016
Citation: Jain, S., Jacob, M., Walker, L., Tekwani, B. 2016. Screening North American plant extracts in vitro against Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent for Human African Trypanosomiasis. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 16(1):131. doi: 10.1186/s12906-016-1122-0.

Interpretive Summary: Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT) is an endemic disease in regions of sub-Saharan Africa, covering 36 countries and more than 60 million people at the risk. Trypanosoma brucei is the causative agent for HAT. There are only few drugs are available for the treatment of this disease and the efficacy of these drugs decrease due to the emergence of drug resistance. Patients suffer from severe toxicities from currently available drugs. There is an urgent need of new effective against HAT. Natural products offer an unmatched source for bioactive molecules with new chemotypes. About 70% of the currently available drugs have their origin from natural products, mainly from plants. Screening of natural products plant extracts will promise potential for discovery of new drug leads. The extracts prepared from 522 plants collected from various parts of the North America were screened against blood stage trypamastigote forms of T. brucei. Eight plants extracts namely, Alnus rubra, Hoita macrostachya, Sabal minor, Syzygium aqueum, Hamamelis virginiana, Coccoloba pubescens, Rhus integrifolia and Nuphar luteum were identified as potent antitrypanosomal extracts shows potent activity against blood stage trypamastigote forms of T. brucei. Follow up evaluation of these plant extracts is likely to yield new antitrypanosomal drug leads.

Technical Abstract: Natural products extracts from 522 plants collected from different parts of the North America were screened in vitro against trypamastigote forms of Trypanosoma brucei. The active extracts(150)with >90% inhibition at 20ug/mL concentrations from the plants namely, Alnus rubra, Hoita macrostachya, Saba! minor, Syzygium aqueum, Hamamelis virginiana, Coccoloba pubescens, Rhus integrifolia and Nuphar luteum were identified as potent new antitrypanosomalleads with IC5o values <1 ug/mL.