Table 1.
Properties of herbal anti-malarial plant products.
Fig 1.
Early (A) and late (B) developmental stages of Plasmodium falciparum gametocytes.
Gametocytes were harvested after 12 and 14 days of continuous in vitro culturing
Fig 2.
Gametocyte development in the presence of suboptimal herbal product concentration.
Asexual P. falciparum parasites (3D7 strain) were cultured in the presence of suboptimal (IC10) levels of each of the 10 herbal products. Cultures were checked for gametocytes on days 5, 7, 11 and 13. ND is the control assay with just culture medium and no herbal product. Asterisks (*) indicate gametocyte counts that were either statistically significantly higher or lower than that of the control (ND). Assays were done in triplicate and error bars represent the standard deviations from at least two repeat experiments.
Table 2.
IC50values for the different herbal products against asexual parasites.
Fig 3.
Gametocyte growth inhibition by the 10 herbal products.
Asexual P. falciparum parasites (3D7 strain) were maintained in continuous culture to generate gametocytes. Early stage (day 12) and late stage (day 14) gametocytes were purified and treated with the 10 herbal products for 72 hours. A) early stage gametocytes treated with 1 μg/ml herbal extract, B) late stage gametocytes treated with 1 μg/ml herbal extract, C) early stage gametocytes treated with 100 μg/ml herbal extract, D) late stage gametocytes treated with 100 μg/ml herbal extract. Artesunate (AS) and primaquine (PQ) were added as standard control drugs for the early and late stage gametocytes respectively. For each herbal product, the number of gametocytes remaining after 72 hours was determined by Giemsa stained thin smears and expressed as a percentage of the number in an untreated control setup. Assays were done in triplicate and error bars represent the standard deviations from at least two repeat experiments. Asterisks (*) indicate inhibitions that were statistically significantly lower than that of the respective standard drugs.