Evaluation of Apoptotic and Antileishmanial Activities of Artemisinin on Promastigotes and BALB/C Mice Infected with Leishmania major

BACKGROUND: In leishmaniasis, some drugs prescribed for treatment have toxic effects and there are reports about drug resistance in some countries. Due to this fact, using herbal drugs such as artemisinin with good efficacy and low toxic effect might be suitable. METHODS: We evaluated the apoptotic effect of artemisinin on Leishmania major in vitro and the antileishmanial activities of artemisinin on leishmaniasis in BALB/c mice and at the end INF-γ and IL-4 cytokines levels were detected by ELISA in spleen cell culture supernatants. During treatment the lesion size and survival rate were measured each four and ten days, respectively. RESULTS: Percentage of early and late apoptosis in promastigotes of control group and promastigotes treated with 10, 25, 50 and 100 μg/ml of artemisinin after 48 h were 0.13, 16.04, 41.23, 49.03 and 81.83, respectively. The IFN-γ in ointment treated group were higher than those of other groups (P<0.05). The in vivo results showed that ointment compounds healed the lesions more effectively rather than intraperitoneal injection method (P<0.05). The survival rate of mice 150 days after challenge in treated group with ointment of artemisinin was 66% while all mice in control groups were died. CONCLUSION: All of in vitro results represented that this drug had antileishmanial effects and these results were confirmed by evaluation effects in vivo condition of leishmaniasis. Interestingly, according to these results it can be concluded that this drug has antileishmanial effects in vitro and in vivo conditions. Artemisinin induces cytotoxic effect on L. major via apoptosis-related mechanism.