EVALUATION OF THE ANTHELMINTIC EFFICACY OF EXTRACTS OF CITRUS AURANTIFOLIA (CHRISTM) SWINGLE FRUIT PEELS IN MICE EXPERIMENTALLY INFECTED WITH HELIGMOSOMOIDES BAKERI

EVALUATION OF THE ANTHELMINTIC EFFICACY OF EXTRACTS OF CITRUS AURANTIFOLIA (CHRISTM) SWINGLE FRUIT PEELS IN MICE EXPERIMENTALLY INFECTED WITH HELIGMOSOMOIDES BAKERI

Abstract

Citrus aurantifolia, commonly known as Lime orange belonging to the family Rutaceae is one of the widely used plants in African and Asian traditional medicine. The plant is commonly available in Nigeria. This present study aimed at evaluating the in vitro and in vivo anthelmintic activity of the fruit peels of Citrus aurantifolia using Heligmosomoides bakeri as a model. The fruits of Citrus aurantifolia were washed, peeled, dried, pulverized and 821 g of it extracted with methanol which yielded 110 g of crude methanol extract (CME) which upon partitioning of 70 g yielded 2.0 g (2.9 %), 4.7 g (6.7 %), 17.5 g (25 %) and 30.7 g (43.9 %) of hexane extract (HE), ethylacetate extract (EE), butanol extract (BE), and aqueous methanol extract (AME), respectively. Preliminary phytochemical screening of the extracts revealed the presence of carbohydrates, glycosides, steroids, flavonoids, phenols, alkaloids, saponins, triterpenes and condensed tannins. Acute toxicity study of the crude methanol extract in mice showed that the extracts were non-toxic even at a dose of 5000 mg/kg. The in vitro anthelmintic studies involve the evaluation of ovicidal (Egg hatch inhibition test) and larvicidal activities of the extracts on the eggs and first stage larvae of H. bakeri. Different concentrations (0.625, 1.25, 2.5, 5, 10, and 20 mg/ml) of the extracts were prepared by dissolving the extracts in distilled water. Two hundred microlitres of each concentration was incubated with the larvae and eggs of H. bakeri contained in 0.2 ml solution in a 96-well microtitre plates and incubated at room temperature for 24 and 48 hours, respectively. Distilled water and albendazole were used as non-treated and treated controls, respectively. In the in vivo anthelmintic study, seventy mice infected with H. bakeri were randomly allocated into 14 groups of 5 mice each. Groups 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12 were treated with crude methanol extract (CME), aqueous methanol extract (AME), ethylacetate extract (EE) and butanol extract (BE), respectively at doses of 250, 500 and 1000 mg/kg. Groups 13 and 14 were treated with albendazole (10 mg/kg) and distilled water (5 ml/kg), respectively, and serve as treated and non-treated controls. All treatments were administered orally on the 16th, 17th and 18th day post infection. Anthelmintic activity was assessed by comparing the faecal egg count reduction and the worms recovered from the treated groups with the non-treated control group. At 20 mg/ml, the CME, EE, HE, AME and BE inhibited the hatching of H. bakeri eggs by 100, 98.2, 97.8, 97.7, and 28.2 %, respectively. Similarly, CME, BE, AME, EE and HE caused death of the larvae of H. bakeri by 100, 94.4, 90.8, 85.9 and 83.3 %, respectively. All the extracts showed significant (p<0.001) anthelmintic effect when compared with albendazole and the non-treated (DW) control. In the in vivo anthelmintic study, at the dose of 1000 mg/kg, CME, BE, EE and AME produced a faecal egg count reduction rate of 91, 80, 71 and 58 %, respectively. Similarly, BE, CME, EE and AME caused a deparasitization rate of 79, 75, 75 and 51 %, respectively. CME, BE and EE produced a significant (p<0.05) deparasitization rate. This study demostrates that Citrus aurantifolia fruit peels possess anthelmintic activity that might be caused by one or more of the secondary metabolites contained in the plant

EVALUATION OF THE ANTHELMINTIC EFFICACY OF EXTRACTS OF CITRUS AURANTIFOLIA (CHRISTM) SWINGLE FRUIT PEELS IN MICE EXPERIMENTALLY INFECTED WITH HELIGMOSOMOIDES BAKERI