Leishmania parasites are the causative agent of leishmaniasis. Many studies are inspecting chemical drugs, including the use of miltefosine and amphotericin B, but curative values may be limited for these drugs with side effects due to the chemical origin, therefore, investigating less toxic therapies is essential. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of artemisinin on Iraqi strain of Leishmania tropica, by experimental macrophage ex vivo infection of amastigotes into mouse macrophage cell-line RAW264.7. Different concentrations (100, 200, 300, 400, 500)μM of artemisinin (ART) were screened to examine the susceptibility of L. tropica amastigotes to invade macrophage cell line along three times of follow up (24, 48 and 72) hours. Results showed that artemisinin had a cytotoxic effect on the parasite in which a significance difference (P < 0.05) in cell viability was observed and IC50 was calculated as 182.6 μM after 48 hours treatment. In addition, percentage of infectivity of intracellular amastigotes was significantly decreased. These findings revealed the potential efficacy of artemisinin against the infectious amastigotes and can be further studied to screen its effectiveness in vivo for exploring a safer herbal compound to treat cutaneous leishmaniasis.
In this study, the ethanolic extracts of Moringa peregrinaseeds (MPSE) were evaluated for their antiparasitic, insecticidal, herbicidal, anti-leukemic, and anti-pancreatic lipase activities. The MPSE showed moderate antileishmanial activity against Leishmania major with an IC50 of 71.7±0.46 μg/mL, compared to 10±0.05 μg/mL and 4±0.05 μg/mL for pentamidine and amphotericin B, respectively. The extract demonstrated moderate insecticidal activity with 41% mortality in Rhyzopertha dominicaand 15.7% in Tribolium castaneum. MPSE exhibitedpotent herbicidal activity against Lemna minorat 1000 μg/mL. Additionally, MPSE inhibited the proliferation of leukemia K562 cells with an IC50 of 25 μg/mL and porcine pancrea
... Show MoreWe have investigated twenty five patients with type-2 diabetes mellitus aged (35-60) years and fifteen healthy persons as control group to detect Anti-Helicobacter pylori IgG antibody. All studied groups were carried out to measure fasting blood sugar, anti- Glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD), anti-? islets cells antibody by IFAT, Anti-H. pylori IgG antibody by ELISA technique. There was significant elevation in the concentration of fasting blood sugar than in control group (P < 0.05), the patients had negative results for anti-GAD antibody and anti- ? islets cells antibody, there were significant differences (P < 0.05) of anti-H. pylori IgG antibody in 28 % of patients had type-2 diabetes than control group. This lead to suggestion that typ
... Show MoreThe current study dealt with anatomical aspects of species Iresine herbstii Hook.ex Lindl. which is the only species resemble the genus Iresine P.Br in Iraq . This species is considered as a new record in Iraq as it wasn’t mentioned within any resource of Iraqi plants. The study included anatomical characteristics of different parts of plants which are root, stem, petiole leaf and sepals. Also the type of venation was investigated , the shape and of seed Surface configuration . The results of the mentioned study of the parts as having important anatomical characteristics for the transvers and vertical sections in them, it also included a study of their tissues, where the root and stem sections appeared as circular, whereas petiole section
... Show MoreSphingolipids (SLs) are major structural constituents of eukaryotes, including the kinetoplastid parasite Leishmania. SLs are important for cellular trafficking and signaling and participate in different cell functions, such as, differentiation and cell death (apoptosis). In this study we have investigated the viability of Leishmania major wild type (W.T) and L. major knockout LmLCB2, one of two subunits of serine palmitoyl transferase (SPT) after treatment with myriocin (potent inhibitor of SPT) in order to detect the survival and proliferation of the parasites in vitro. This is to focus on the de novo sphingolipids biosynthesis pathway in both Leishmania wild type which can synthesize SPT and knockout Leishmania which genetically ablated
... Show MoreThe inhibitory behavior of L-Cysteine (Cys) and its derivatives towards iron corrosion through density functional theory (DFT) was investigated. The current research study undertakes a rigorous evaluation of global as well as local reactivity descriptors of the Cys in protonated as well as neutral forms and the changes in reactivity after the combination of Cys into di- and tripeptides. The inhibitory effect of di- and tri-peptides increases since, in the molecular structure, the number of reaction centers increase. We computed the adsorption energies (Eads) and low energy complexes with most stability for the adsorption of small peptides and Cys amino acids onto the surfaces of Fe (1 1 1). We found that the adsorption of tri-peptides onto
... Show MoreTo study the qualitative changes in testis tissue after carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) administration and to determine whether citric acid (CA) has a protective effect against testis damage induced by CCl4. This study compared two types of CA by measuring the histoarchitecture of the testis and serum levels of progesterone, estrogen and testosterone on mice. One of the most produced organic acid is citric acid. In this study, CA produced by microbial fermentation using Aspergillus Niger 5mg/kg and derived from citrus limon 400mg/kg (lemon). Mice were treated with daily intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection for seven successive days after randomly separated into six groups: (1) control, (2) CCl4 (0.02%), (3) limon citric acid (400 mg/kg), (4) CCl4 (
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