The study of antileishmanial effect of Medicago lupulina leaves alcoholic extract on Leishmania major (MRHO/IR/75/ER) by MTT assay

Background and objective: Leishmaniasis is caused by protozoa of Leishmania genus and can be considered as a Zoonosis. The desease has caused the world health problems with high endemicity in developing countries such as Iran. Various chemical drugs have been used for leishmaniasis treatment, but their side effects and drug resistance haveled to look for new effective compounds. Medicago lupulina, the traditional and medicinal herbare two valuable source of new Pharmaceutical agents. Material and Methods: The alcoholic extract was prepared through maceration method and dried, Then solved in water and DMSO 5%. Leishmania major promastigotes were cultured in 2±25 °C temperature in the Schneider's medium, then in the stationary phase of RPMI1640 culture growth medium, enriched with 10% fetal calf serum and Penicillin-Streptomycin to provide large quantity of them. Then the biological activity of extract was evaluated on Leishmania major promastigotes compared to glucantime drug using MTT colorometry. The optical density was measured with Eliza reader set, and the IC50 value was calculated. All tests repeated 3 times. Resalts and Discussion: Glucantime IC50 for standard parasite was equal to 12 μg/ml after 48 hours respectively. After 48 hours, IC50 for extract were equal to 98 μg/ml against standard parasite promastigotes respectively. Although the glucantime pharmaceutical drug was more efficient compared to investigate extract, the extract also had significantly effects on leishmania major promastigotes with higher density. Conclusion: Regarding that the studied extract had considerable antileishmanial effect compared to glucantime in vitro, the necessity of conducting more experiments to investigate its effect on the parasite in animal model is also appreciated.