Asteraceae Artemisia campestris and Artemisia herba-alba Essential Oils Trigger Apoptosis and Cell Cycle Arrest in Leishmania infantum Promastigotes

Zohra Aloui (1, 2) , Chokri Messaoud (3) , Meriam Haoues (4, 2) , Noura Neffati (1, 2) , Imen Bassoumi Jamoussi (1) , Mohamed Boussaid (3) , Khadija Essafi-Benkhadir (1, 2) , Ikram Guizani (1) , Habib Karoui (1, 2)

1 LR11IPT04 - Laboratoire d'Epidémiologie Moléculaire et de Pathologie Expérimentale Appliquée aux Maladies Infectieuses
2 UTM - Université de Tunis El Manar
3 Unite Ressources Phytogenet & Biotechnol Vegetale
4 LR11IPT02 - Laboratoire de Transmission, Contrôle et Immunobiologie des Infections - Laboratory of Transmission, Control and Immunobiology of Infection

We report the chemical composition and anti-Leishmania and antioxidant activity of Artemisia campestris L. and Artemisia herba-alba Asso. essential oils (EOs). Our results showed that these extracts exhibit different antioxidant activities according to the used assay. The radical scavenging effects determined by DPPH assay were of IC 50 = 3.3 mg/mL and IC 50 = 9.1 mg/mL for Artemisia campestris and Artemisia herba-alba essential oils, respectively. However, antioxidant effects of both essential oils, determined by ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay, were in the same range (2.3 and 2.97 mg eq EDTA/g EO, resp.), while the Artemisia herba-alba essential oil showed highest chelating activity of Fe 2+ ions (27.48 mM Fe 2+). Interestingly, we showed that both EOs possess dose-dependent activity against Leishmania infantum promastigotes with IC 50 values of 68 í µí¼‡g/mL and 44 í µí¼‡g/mL for A. herba-alba and A. campestris, respectively. We reported, for the first time, that antileishmanial activity of both EOs was mediated by cell apoptosis induction and cell cycle arrest at the sub-G0/G1 phase. All our results showed that EOs from A. herba-alba and A. campestris plants are promising candidates as anti-Leishmania medicinal products.

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]

Zohra Aloui, Chokri Messaoud, Meriam Haoues, Noura Neffati, Imen Bassoumi Jamoussi, et al.. Asteraceae Artemisia campestris and Artemisia herba-alba Essential Oils Trigger Apoptosis and Cell Cycle Arrest in Leishmania infantum Promastigotes. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2016, 2016, pp.9147096. ⟨10.1155/2016/9147096⟩. ⟨pasteur-01446819⟩