Enhancing a search for traditional medicinal plants with anthelmintic action by using wild type and stress reporter Caenorhabditis elegans strains as screening tools

R Kumarasingha; E A Palombo; M Bhave; T C Yeo; D S L Lim; C L Tu; J M Shaw; P R Boag

doi:10.1016/j.ijpara.2014.01.008

Enhancing a search for traditional medicinal plants with anthelmintic action by using wild type and stress reporter Caenorhabditis elegans strains as screening tools

Int J Parasitol. 2014 Apr;44(5):291-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpara.2014.01.008. Epub 2014 Feb 26.

Authors

R Kumarasingha¹, E A Palombo², M Bhave², T C Yeo³, D S L Lim³, C L Tu³, J M Shaw⁴, P R Boag⁵

Affiliations

¹ Environment and Biotechnology Centre, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria 3122, Australia; Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia.
² Environment and Biotechnology Centre, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria 3122, Australia.
³ Sarawak Biodiversity Centre (SBC), KM 20 Jalan Borneo Heights, Semengoh, Locked Bag No. 3032, 93990 Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.
⁴ Environment and Biotechnology Centre, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria 3122, Australia. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁵ Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Electronic address: [email protected].

PMID: 24583111
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpara.2014.01.008

Abstract

Traditional healers in Sarawak, Malaysia, use plants such as Picria fel-terrae, Linariantha bicolor and Lansium domesticum to treat gastrointestinal infections. This study aimed to test whether their nematocidal activities could be confirmed in vitro using highly standardised Caenorhabditis elegans models. We applied eight different ethanol solubilised plant extracts and two commercial anthelmintic drugs to larval and adult stages of C. elegans in vitro. Seven C. elegans strains were evaluated, one wild type and six strains with GFP-tagged stress response pathways to help characterise and compare the pathways affected by plant extracts. Our in vitro screen confirmed that both of the commercial anthelmintic drugs and five of the eight traditionally used plant extracts had significant nematocidal activity against both larval and adult C. elegans. The most effective extracts were from P. fel-terrae. The plant extracts triggered different stress response pathways from the commercial anthelmintic drugs. This study showed that using traditional knowledge of plant medicinal properties in combination with a C. elegans in vitro screen provided a rapid and economical test with a high hit rate compared with the random screening of plants for nematocidal activities. The use of transgenic C. elegans strains may allow this approach to be refined further to investigate the mode of action of active extracts.

Keywords: Anthelmintic activity; Caenorhabditis elegans; Ethnomedicinal plant extracts.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Anthelmintics / isolation & purification
Anthelmintics / pharmacology*
Caenorhabditis elegans / drug effects*
Drug Evaluation, Preclinical / methods*
Genes, Reporter
Green Fluorescent Proteins / analysis
Green Fluorescent Proteins / genetics
Larva / drug effects
Plant Extracts / isolation & purification
Plant Extracts / pharmacology*
Plants, Medicinal / chemistry*
Tracheophyta / chemistry

Substances

Anthelmintics
Plant Extracts
Green Fluorescent Proteins