Trypanocidal activity of some endemic species of Satureja in Iran

Trypanosoma cruzi, a hemoflagellate protozoan (family Trypanosomatidae), is the ethiological agent of Chagas disease, which is affecting 16-18 million people, with more than 100 million exposed to the risk of infection. Higher plants are a potential source of new drugs to improve the treatment of Chagase disease. Until recently, Rutacea, Meliaceae, Simaroubaceae and Burceraceae families have been studied in order to find trypanocidal compounds. In additon, some species of Dracocephalum (Labiatae) have been found as the main sources of active terpenoids and flavonoids against epimastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi Aerial parts of the plants (flowers, leaves and stems) were dried carefully and reduced to powder, followed by extraction three times with diethyl ether by maceration at room temperature for 72 hours. This process was repeated on the marc with acetone, methanol and water, successively, and then the solvents evaporated under reduced pressure to obtain the concentrated extracts. All extracts were dried under vacuum for 24 h in order to give dried powder of extracts. Epimastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi (Tulahuen strain) were kept in GIT medium (Wako) supplemented with hemin (12.4 µM, Wako). The epimastigotes in GIT medium (10 µL) were incubated with a test sample dissolved in EtOH (5 µL) and autoclaved saline (185 µL). All samples were incubated at 27°C for 24 hours. The movement of epimastigotes was observed under a microscope. We assumed that immobilized organisms were died. In this study, the in vitro trypanocidal activity of some fractions for Satureja mutica and S. macrantha belonging to the Labiatae family was evaluated. Acetone fractions of both plants were the most active fraction (MLC=12.5 ?g/ml) against the epimastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi, the ethiological agent of Chagas disease. The trypanocidal activity seems to be decreased by fractionation using MeOH and water as solvents. The results obtained from trypanocidal assay revealed that satureja is a promising source of active anti-trypanosoma compounds. In addition, the phytochemical studies showed that the active fractions were rich of terpenoids and flavonoids.