Abdul Matin
University of Haripur, Pakistan
Title: Peganum harmala exhibit potent activity against Acanthamoeba adhesion and cytotoxicity to human corneal epithelial cells in vitro
Biography
Biography: Abdul Matin
Abstract
Acanthamoeba is an opportunistic protozoan pathogen and ubiquitous in nature. It plays a pivotal role in ecosystem and recognized to cause blinding keratitis and fatal granulomatous encephalitis involving the central nervous system with a very poor prognosis. This is due to limited availability of effective anti-Acanthamoeba drugs. The objective of the present study was to determine the efficacy of plant extracts derived by various methods (ethanol, methanol, acetone and aqueous) on Acanthamoeba binding and its cytotoxic effect on human brain microvascular endothelial cells (HCEC) In vitro. Using HCEC it was observed that Acanthamoeba (T4 genotype) exhibited binding (>85%) and cytotoxicity (>70%) to host cells. However, plant extracts remarkably inhibited more than 70% and 60% of Acanthamoeba binding and cytotoxicity to HCEC respectively. It is worth mentioning that methanolic extract showed maximum activity as compared to other extracts. It was further confirmed that extracts (ranging from 0.1 to 1.5mg/ml) exhibited amoebicidal effects, i.e. >50% of trophozoites were killed at maximum dose (1.5mg/ml) within one hour incubation. However the residual subpopulation remained static over longer incubations. Furthermore growth assay demonstrated crude extracts inhibited >50% Acanthamoeba numbers up to seven days. Our results confirmed that plant extracts has inhibitory effects on Acanthamoeba growth and viability. Overall, these findings revealed that tested plant extracts is inhibitory to Acanthamoeba properties associated with pathogenesis. To the best of our knowledge, our findings demonstrated for the first time that selected plant crude extracts exhibits inhibitory effects on biological properties of Acanthamoeba without any toxic effects on HCEC cells In vitro.