Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Chemical Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 2 Institute of Systems Biology (INBIOSIS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 3 Department of Earth Sciences and Environment, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 4 Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
Trop Biomed, 2022 Dec 01;39(4):552-558.
PMID: 36602215 DOI: 10.47665/tb.39.4.011

Abstract

Diplazium esculentum is an edible fern commonly consumed by the local community in Malaysia either as food or medicine. Isolation work on the ethyl acetate extract of the stem of D. esculentum resulted in the purification of two steroids, subsequently identified as stigmasterol (compound 1) and ergosterol5,8-endoperoxide (compound 2). Upon further testing, compound 2 displayed strong inhibitory activity against the Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 (chloroquine-sensitive) strain, with an IC50 of 4.27±1.15 µM, while compound 1 was inactive. In silico data revealed that compound 2 showed good binding affinity to P. falciparum-Sarco endoplasmic reticulum calcium-dependent ATPase (PfATP6); however, compound 1 did not show an antiplasmodial effect due to the lack of a peroxide moiety in the chemical structure. Our data suggested that the antiplasmodial activity of compound 2 from D. esculentum might be due to the inhibition of PfATP6, which resulted in both in vitro and in silico inhibitory properties.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.