Antimalarial activity of Alcoholic Extract of Curcuma longa and Heracleum persicum on Cultivated Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 strain

Introduction: Plasmodium falciparum causes the most fatal form of malaria in humans. At present, the common treatments are not effective enough and the incidence of drug resistance is increasing in malarious areas. Therefore, presenting novel methods for therapeutic purposes assumes significant importance. Recent studies have indicated that aqueous or alcoholic extracts of Curcuma longa and Heracleum persicum show a broad spectrum of anti-microorganisms activity. In this (in vitro) study, the effects of C. longa and H. persicum extracts were assessed on P. falciparum since there has been limited clinical research into their effectiveness on Malaria. Materials and Methods: The alcoholic extracts of H. persicum and C. longa were prepared in 10^-1, 10^-3, and 10^-5 mg/ml dilutions. These solutions were tested on P. falciparum with 10% parasitemia in RPMI 1640 medium with 10% hematocrit. Each of the dilutions was examined in triplicate and the inhibitory effect of the solutions on parasites was measured via determining the average parasitemia and their schizont rate. Finally, the results were analyzed using SPSS software. Results: The rate of parasitemia declined in three different dilutions of both H. persicum and C. longa. The mean of antiplasmodial inhibitory activity of herbs was 83.23±2.47% in H.persicum and 99.91±0.0% in C.longa. Moreover, all dilutions of both H.persicum and C.longa showed a significant effect on decreasing the percentage of schizont in comparison with the control group (P-value 0.05). Conclusions: The present study indicated that alcoholic extracts of C. longa and H. persicum possess acceptable antiplasmodial effects and can be developed as valuable alternatives to ineffective antimalarial drugs. These results support the claims of recent studies that C. longa and H. persicum, have considerable antimicrobial activities. Considering the notable in vitro antiplasmodial efficacy of C.longa and H.persicum, further studies with in vivo method are recommended.