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Anti-Toxoplasma In Vitro and In Vivo Activity of Pyrus boissieriana Arbutin-Rich Fraction

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Abstract

Purpose

Pyrus boissieriana is a rich source of arbutin and has been used in herbal medicine to treat infectious diseases. This study aimed to investigate the effect of the arbutin-rich fraction of Pyrus boissieriana aerial parts on Toxoplasma gondii In Vitro and In Vivo.

Methods

An arbutin-rich fraction of P. boissieriana was prepared beforehand. Flow cytometry was used to evaluate the effect of different concentrations (1–512 µg/ml) of the P. boissieriana arbutin-rich fraction on Toxoplasma tachyzoites (RH strain). The cytotoxicity of the concentrations on the macrophage J774 cell line was also investigated by MTT assay. For In Vivo investigation, 4–6-week-old female mice infected with the RH strain of T. gondii were treated with different doses (16, 32, 64, 256, and 512 mg/kg) of the fraction using gavage.

Results

The highest and lowest lethality of the tachyzoites were 89.6% and 25.9% related to the concentrations of 512 µg/ml and 1 µg/ml, respectively, with an IC50 value of 18.1 µg/ml ± 0.37. The cytotoxicity test showed an IC50 value of 984.3 µg/ml ± 0.76 after 48 h incubation. The mean survival of mice at the lowest treated dose (16 mg/kg) was 6.6 days, and it was 15 days at the highest dose (512 mg/kg). The concentrations of 512, 256, 128, and 64 mg/kg of the fraction compared to the negative control (6.2 days mean survival) significantly increased the survival time of mice (P < 0.001, P = 0.009, P = 0.018, and P = 0.021, respectively).

Conclusion

The results showed that the arbutin-rich fraction of P. boissieriana is effective against T. gondii In Vitro and In Vivo and may be a reliable alternative to conventional treatment for toxoplasmosis, although further studies are necessary.

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Data sharing statement

The authors confirmed that all the data for this manuscript are available; if someone wants to request the data, they can contact the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

This study was undertaken as an MD degree thesis for Meysam Gholami and Mojtaba Habibollahi and the work was supported by Shiraz University of Medical Sciences.

Funding

The study was financially supported by the office of the vice-chancellor for research of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (Grant No. 21764).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Parasitology and Mycology, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

    Mohammad Saleh Bahreini, Seyyed Farzad Pourmohammadi, Meysam Gholami, Mojtaba Habibollahi & Qasem Asgari

  2. Valfajr Health Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

    Mohammad Saleh Bahreini

  3. Medicinal Plants Processing Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

    Ardalan Pasdaran & Azadeh Hamedi

  4. Department of Pharmacognosy, School of Pharmacy, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

    Azadeh Hamedi

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  1. Mohammad Saleh Bahreini
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  4. Mojtaba Habibollahi
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Contributions

QA, AH, and APL Conceived and designed the experiments. MSB, SFP, MGh, and MH Performed the experiments. MSB and QA Analyzed and interpreted the data. QA Contributed reagents, materials, analysis tools, or data. The first draft of the manuscript was written by MSB and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qasem Asgari.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethics and consent statement

The current study was approved by the Ethical Committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran (ethical code: IR.SUMS.MED.REC.1400.038).

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Bahreini, M.S., Pourmohammadi, S.F., Gholami, M. et al. Anti-Toxoplasma In Vitro and In Vivo Activity of Pyrus boissieriana Arbutin-Rich Fraction. Acta Parasit. 69, 567–573 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11686-023-00759-x

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