Antileishmanial activity of Hyssopus officinalis, Tussilago farfara, Carum copticum extracts in comparison with Glucantime in Iran

Leishmania is transmitted by sandflies that ingest the parasite in the amastigote phase resident within macrophages, then inoculate the promastigote phase into body hosts. The present study was conducted to evaluate the in vitro effects of alcoholic extracts of plants on L. major. The extract of aerial parts of plants were obtained by maceration. The in vitro experiments were performed on promastigotes to assess anti Leishmanial activity of the extracts using glucantime as a reference. The extract of plants and glucantime solutions for biological testing were prepared in PBS at several concentration, respectively. All experiments were repeated at least three times in duplicate. For the extract of plants and glucantime, the concentration-response curve was plotted, from which IC50 values were determined also MTT assay was done. The different concentrations resulted in different optical densities or inhibitory percentages (P<0.05) so that extract of plants were effective against L. major in vitro. The Findings of this study indicates that these plants are effective against L. major in vitro.