Departamento de Fisiologia, Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Sao Cristóvao, Sergipe, Brasil.
Biol Res. 2012;45(4):399-402. doi: 10.4067/S0716-97602012000400012.
Leishamaniasis is a disease that affects more than 2 million people worldwide, whose causative agent is Leishmania spp. The current therapy for leishmaniasis is far from satisfactory. All available drugs, including pentavalent antimony, require parenteral administration and are potentially toxic. Moreover, an increase in clinical resistance to these drugs has been reported. In this scenario, plant essential oils used traditionally in folk medicine are emerging as alternative sources for chemotherapeutic compounds. In this study, in vitro leishmanicidal effects of a thymol- and a carvacrol-rich essential oil from leaves of Lippia sidoides Cham. were investigated. The essential oils were extracted and their constituents were characterized by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Both essential oils showed significant activity against promastigote forms of Leishmania chagasi. However, we found that carvacrol-rich essential oil was more effective, with IC50/72 h of 54.8 μg/mL compared to 74.1 μg/mL for thymol-rich oil. Carvacrol also showed lower IC50 than thymol. Our data suggest that L. sidoides essential oils are indeed promising sources of leishmanicidal compounds.
利什曼病是一种影响全球超过 200 万人的疾病，其病原体是利什曼原虫属。目前的利什曼病治疗方法远不能令人满意。所有可用的药物，包括五价锑，都需要进行肠外给药，而且具有潜在的毒性。此外，据报道，这些药物的临床耐药性有所增加。在这种情况下，传统上用于民间医学的植物精油作为化疗化合物的替代来源正在出现。在这项研究中，研究了从唇形科植物中提取的富含百里香酚和香芹酚的精油对利什曼原虫前鞭毛体的体外杀利什曼原虫作用。通过气相色谱-质谱联用仪（GC/MS）对精油进行了提取和成分鉴定。两种精油对利什曼原虫的前鞭毛体形式均显示出显著的活性。然而，我们发现富含香芹酚的精油比富含百里香酚的精油更有效，其 IC50/72 h 为 54.8 μg/mL，而富含百里香酚的精油为 74.1 μg/mL。香芹酚的 IC50 也低于百里香酚。我们的数据表明，L. sidoides 精油确实是杀利什曼原虫化合物的有前途的来源。
