Visceral
leishmaniasis is caused by parasites of the genus Leishmania. Prevalent in
developing countries, the disease is on the list of the world’s most neglected
diseases. Most cases (90%) in Latin America occur in Brazil, especially in the
Northeast. The condition is treated mainly with pentavalent
antimonials, an expensive and relatively inefficient drug known
to induce resistance. In search of new antileishmanial drugs, much attention
has been given to the medicinal properties of coumarin. In this study, coumarin
was isolated from seeds of Amburana
cearensis, purified and evaluated with regard to its ability to inhibit Leishmania chagasi promastigotes using
the MTT test. The cell viability of macrophages treated
with coumarin was also evaluated. The findings were submitted to one-way ANOVA
for paired data, followed by the Bonferroni correction. The level of
statistical significance was set at 5% (p < 0.05). Coumarin displayed low toxicity to macrophages in the MTT test (p > 0.05), but was toxic to Leishmania chagasi promastigotes (p < 0.05). Our results represent a
contribution to the development of new drugs for the control or prophylaxis of
visceral leishmaniasis.
Cite this paper
Monteiro, R. M. , Carneiro, I. D. S. , Sousa, F. D. D. , Teixeira, M. J. , Dourado, R. C. M. , Moreira, R. D. A. and Moreira, A. C. D. O. M. (2017). Antileishmanial Activity of Coumarin from Amburana cearensis Seeds. Open Access Library Journal, 4, e3829. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1103829.
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