Parasitology and Entomology Dept., Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
Parasitology and Entomology Dept., Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
Acta Trop. 2020 Apr;204:105384. doi: 10.1016/j.actatropica.2020.105384. Epub 2020 Feb 1.
Blastocystis infection accounts for one of the causes of gastrointestinal problems with the prevalence rate of 3-100% worldwide. There is a wide range of drugs examined for the treatment of infected patients, among them metronidazole (MTZ) has been introduced as one of the efficient drugs. Besides to the suitable clinical effects, the administration of MTZ has some reported side-effects which emphasize on the identification of putative alternates. To this end, we aimed to evaluate the cytotoxicity effect of a newly-introduced synthetic antimicrobial peptide (AMP) named CM11 on in vitro cultured Blastocystis. Our results exhibited that CM11 treatment affected the viability of parasites in two cultural conditions including culturing alone and in co-culture with the Caco-2 cell line. The time- and dose-dependent effect of CM11 was consistent with the effect of MTZ which was used as control positive. The highest toxicity effect of CM11 was observed at the concentration of 24 μg/ml, leading to 28.7% and 25% viable parasites after 24 h and 48 h incubation times, respectively. Interestingly, the disruption of the Blastocystis cell membrane could be observed in the treated parasites. Therefore, CM11 can be suggested as a potential treatment for Blastocystis-infected patients after further in vitro and in vivo assessments.
芽囊原虫感染是引起胃肠道问题的原因之一，全球患病率为 3-100%。有许多药物被用于治疗受感染的患者，其中甲硝唑（MTZ）已被作为一种有效的药物引入。除了适当的临床效果外，MTZ 的给药有一些报道的副作用，这强调了鉴定潜在替代品的重要性。为此，我们旨在评估一种新引入的合成抗菌肽（AMP）CM11 对体外培养的芽囊原虫的细胞毒性作用。
我们的结果表明，CM11 处理在单独培养和与 Caco-2 细胞系共培养两种培养条件下均影响寄生虫的活力。CM11 的时间和剂量依赖性效应与作为对照阳性的 MTZ 的效应一致。CM11 的最高毒性作用发生在浓度为 24μg/ml 时，分别在 24 小时和 48 小时孵育时间后导致 28.7%和 25%的寄生虫存活。有趣的是，在处理的寄生虫中可以观察到芽囊原虫细胞膜的破坏。
因此，CM11 可以在进一步的体外和体内评估后被提议作为治疗感染芽囊原虫的患者的潜在药物。
