In vivo antimalarial efficacy of acetogenins, alkaloids and flavonoids enriched fractions from Annona crassiflora Mart.

Abstract

Annona crassiflora and Annonaceae plants are known to be used to treat malaria by traditional healers. In this work, the antimalarial efficacy of different fractions of A. crassiflora, particularly acetogenin, alkaloids and flavonoid-rich fractions, was determined in vivo using Plasmodium berghei-infected mice model and toxicity was accessed by brine shrimp assay. The A. crassiflora fractions were administered at doses of 12.5 mg/kg/day in a 4-day test protocol. The results showed that some fractions from woods were rich in acetogenins, alkaloids and terpenes, and other fractions from leaves were rich in alkaloids and flavonoids. The parasitaemia was significantly (p < 0.05, p < 0.001) reduced (57–75%) with flavonoid and alkaloid-rich leaf fractions, which also increased mean survival time of mice after treatment. Our results confirm the usage of this plant in folk medicine as an antimalarial remedy.

Keywords::

• Annona crassiflora
• antimalarial efficacy
• flavonoids
• aporphine alkaloids

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by FAPEMIG-Brazil (CDS-853-06, CEX-PPM-00546 and APQ6247-07 and Rede Mineira de Nanobiotecnologia of FAPEMIG) and CNPq researcher grant to VCFM. The authors thank Prof. Dênia A.S. Guimarães (UFOP) for her helpful discussions and suggestions.