Medicinal plants used against Echinococcus granulosus
Medicinal plants used against Echinococcus granulosus
Fatemeh Heshmati,1Erfan Shapourgan,2Hassan Borji,3,*
1. Department of Pathobiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran 2. Department of medicine, Tehran university of medical science 3. Department of Pathobiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Introduction: A zoonotic disease, cystic echinococcosis (CE), is caused by the larval stage of Echinococcus granulosus. There are still many countries around the world where it is a significant public health and economic issue. Depending on the location and stage of the cyst, CE poses a severe health threat to its intermediate hosts, such as humans, sheep, goats, and cattle, as it grows in the viscera.
E. granulosus infections typically occur in vital organs like the brain, liver, and lungs. The disease is treated according to the location, size, and stage of the cysts. To date, CE is treated with four methods: surgery (the only option until the 1980s), puncture aspiration injection and re-aspiration (PAIR), chemotherapy using synthetic drugs such as benzimidazole compounds, and watch-and-wait for clinically inactive and silent cysts. There are, however, some significant limitations to these treatment methods. Various medicinal plants and their components are studied for their in vitro/in vivo scolicidal effectiveness against Echinococcus granulosus in this study.
Methods: ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, Scopus, and PubMed are universally recognized databases for retrieving published data (from 2000 to 2020). An evaluation of the published literature was carried out in order to identify the medicinal plants and compounds that had scolicidal activity against E. granulosus. The keywords used to search the database were "natural products against protoscoleces," "scolicidal agents," "scolicidal activities of plants in vitro or in vivo," and "medicinal plants employed against E. granulosus."
700 studies were funded. 670 abstracts were omitted, and 30 full texts were read. In total, 15 relevant articles with complete abstracts were included in the study.
Results: The most commonly used anti-Echinococcus herbs were Zataria multiflora, Berberis vulgaris, Nigella sativa, Allium sativum, and Zingiber officinale (ginger). Leaves are also widely used. A number of active compounds have been identified, including carvacrol, thymol, menthol, genistein, berberine, thymoquinone, gallic acid, and ampelopsin.
All seven compounds were tested in vitro for their effectiveness against protoscoleces, but only two (carvacrol and thymol) were studied in vivo. While the mechanisms by which phenolic monoterpenes affect protoscoleces are not fully understood, research on other eukaryotic cells shows that they have a significant effect on the plasma membranes and mitochondria.
Through their penetration, they damage the lipid bilayer and alter cell permeability. The result is an increase in ion leakage and a decrease in membrane electric potential. Plasma membrane electric potential changes may result in leakages of proteins, amino acids, ATP, and electrolytes, especially calcium and potassium. This leads to membrane damage and cell death. Further, molecular changes within the mitochondrial membrane result in leaked radicals, proteins, calcium, and cytochrome C, leading to apoptosis.
Conclusion: Researchers have developed a great deal of interest in a variety of plant extracts, as well as essential oils, for the purpose of finding compounds with high scolicidal efficacy, which can be combined with or used in place of synthetic medications for CE treatment, both when combined with other compounds and on their own.