Antiplasmodial Activity of Methanolic Leaf Extract of Mangrove Plants against Plasmodium berghei

Introduction: A mosquito-borne disease infected by Plasmodium is named as Malaria. Some drugs subjected to be active againts protozoans has developed resistance. It is very urgent to find alternative sources of new antimalarial agent. The main aim of this research was to study the activity of methanolic extracts of the leaf from mangrove plants on Plasmodium berghei by using ex vivo model. Method: Screening of antiplasmodial activity from methanolic leaf extracts of Sonneratia alba, Acanthus ilicifolius and Sonneratia caseolaris against Plasmodium berghei was carried out in this study. Antiplasmodial study was subjected ex vivo against P. berghei strain ANKA infected into Balb-C mice. Calculation of the percentage of parasitemia after 24 h observed in the model and a decrease in parasitemia level and inhibitory propagation were defined as the results. Results: Potential antiplasmodial activity shown by a decrease in parasitemia level and high inhibitory percentage was revealed by S. alba leaf methanolic extract at concentrations of 300, 100, 30, 10 and 3 μg/mL which provide the inhibition percentage of 95.5; 92,9; 78.7; 42.7 and 18.8%, respectively. Antiplasmodial activity can also be identified by the life cycle inhibition of plasmodium. Methanolic leaf extract of S. alba showed inhibition activity in the development of ring stage at minimum extract concentration of 300 μg/mL. At lower concentrations, trophozoites and schizones persisted with defects in morphological conditions. Moreover, Antiplasmodial activity of methanolic extracts of S. alba leaf was better than methanol extracts of A. Ilicifolius and S. caseolaris leaf. Conclusion: The results of this study indicated that among the mangrove plants have been studied, S. alba mangrove exhibited the highest antisplasmodial activity which moreover assumed as a potential source for natural antimalarial drug candidate.