Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Efficacy of some essential oils in mice infected with Trypanosoma cruzi

Gerson Zanusso Junior¹ , Miyoko Massago¹, Ana Paula M Teston¹, Alexandre T Morey², Max Jean O Toledo¹

¹Department of Basic Health Sciences, State University of Maringá (UEM), Avenida Colombo, 5790, Jardim UniversitÃ¡rio, 87020-900, Maringá; ²Department of Microbiology, State University of Londrina (UEL), Celso Garcia Cid Highway, Km 380, s/n, Campus Universitàrio, 86057-970, Londrina, Paraná, Brazil.

For correspondence:- Gerson Junior Email: gersonjr17@hotmail.com Tel:+554430118991

Received: 7 February 2017 Accepted: 22 May 2017 Published: 29 June 2017

Citation: Junior GZ, Massago M, Teston AP, Morey AT, Toledo MJ. Efficacy of some essential oils in mice infected with Trypanosoma cruzi. Trop J Pharm Res 2017; 16(6):1307-1316 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v16i6.14

© 2017 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of orally administered Cymbopogon citratus, Zingiber officinale and Syzygium aromaticum essential oils (EOs) in mice infected with Trypanosoma cruzi.

Methods: Three experiments were conducted with 48 Swiss mice each. The animals were inoculated with 2 x 10⁶ metacyclic trypomastigotes of T. Cruzi Y-strain and allocated into the following groups (N = 12): 1) untreated control; 2) treated with benznidazole (BZ); 3) treated with EO 100 mg/kg; and 4) treated with EO 250 mg/kg. The groups were evaluated by fresh blood test, blood culture, conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR), real-time PCR and cure rate (CR).

Results: All the animals were completely infected with T. cruzi. Treatment with C. citratus and Z. officinale EOs altered some of the parameters derived from the parasitemia curve, but CRs did not differ from BZ. Treatment with S. Aromaticum EO, on the other hand, not only altered all the parameters derived from the parasitemia curve, similar to BZ, but at the dose of 100 mg/kg, CR was also significantly higher than BZ.

Conclusion: The results indicate that the essential oils tested, especially S. aromaticum, exhibited anti-Trypanosoma cruzi effect and therefore should be investigated for the treatment of Chagas disease.

Keywords: Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, Cymbopogon citratus, Zingiber officinale, Syzygium aromaticum, Essential oils, Chemotherapy