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- Title
Essential oils from Syzygium aromaticum and Zingiber officinale, administered alone or in combination with benznidazole, reduce the parasite load in mice orally inoculated with Trypanosoma cruzi II.
- Authors
Sarto, Marcella Paula Mansano; Lucas da Silva, Hevillyn Fernanda; de Souza Fernandes, Nilma; de Abreu, Ana Paula; Zanusso Junior, Gerson; de Ornelas Toledo, Max Jean
- Abstract
Background: Trypanosoma cruzi is the etiological agent of Chagas disease (CD) or American trypanosomiasis, an important public health problem in Latin America. Benznidazole (BZ), a drug available for its treatment, has limited efficacy and significant side effects. Essential oils (EOs) have demonstrated trypanocidal activity and may constitute a therapeutic alternative. Our aim was to evaluate the efficacy of the EOs of clove (CEO - Syzygium aromaticum) and ginger (GEO - Zingiber officinale), administered alone and in combination with BZ, in Swiss mice infected with T. cruzi. Methods: The animals were inoculated with 10,000 blood trypomastigotes of the Y strain of T. cruzi II by gavage and divided into four groups (n = 12 to 15): 1) untreated control (NT); 2) treated with BZ; 3) treated with CEO or GEO; and 4) treated with BZ + CEO or GEO. The treatments consisted of oral administration of 100 mg/kg/day, from the 5th day after parasite inoculation, for 20 consecutive days. All groups were submitted to fresh blood examination (FBE), blood culture (BC), conventional PCR (cPCR) and real-time PCR (qPCR), before and after immunosuppression with cyclophosphamide. Results: Clove and ginger EOs, administered alone and in combination with BZ, promoted suppression of parasitemia (p < 0.0001), except for the animals treated with CEO alone, which presented a parasitemia curve similar to NT animals. However, there was a decrease in the BC positivity rate (p < 0.05) and parasite load (< 0.0001) in this group. Treatment with GEO alone, on the other hand, besides promoting a decrease in the BC positivity rate (p < 0.05) and parasite load (p < 0.01), this EO also resulted in a decrease in mortality rate (p < 0.05) of treated mice. Conclusions: Decreased parasite load, as detected by qPCR, was observed in all treatment groups (BZ, CEO, GEO and BZ + EOs), demonstrating benefits even in the absence of parasitological cure, thus opening perspectives for further studies.
- Subjects
ANTIPROTOZOAL agents; KRUSKAL-Wallis Test; ESSENTIAL oils; COMBINATION drug therapy; ANIMAL experimentation; ORAL drug administration; BLOOD collection; MANN Whitney U Test; IMIDAZOLES; TREATMENT effectiveness; COMPARATIVE studies; TRYPANOSOMIASIS; RESEARCH funding; KAPLAN-Meier estimator; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; CHI-squared test; PARASITES; POLYMERASE chain reaction; DATA analysis software; MICE
- Publication
BMC Complementary Medicine & Therapies, 2021, Vol 21, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
2662-7671
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1186/s12906-021-03248-8