Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Pharmacy, University of Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 18800, Pakistan; Department of Pharmacy, Kohat University of Science & Technology, Kohat 26000, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
  • 2 Department of Pharmacy, University of Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 18800, Pakistan. Electronic address: farhataziz80@hotmail.com
  • 3 Department of Pharmacy, University of Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 18800, Pakistan. Electronic address: ayazuop@gmail.com
  • 4 Department of Pharmacy, University of Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 18800, Pakistan
  • 5 Department of Chemistry, Kohat University of Science & Technology, Kohat 26000, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan
  • 6 Faculty of Pharmacy, Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Selangor Kampus Puncak Alam, Bandar Puncak Alam, Selangor 42300, Malaysia; Atta-ur-Rahman Institute for Natural Products Discovery (AuRIns), Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Selangor Kampus Puncak Alam, Bandar Puncak Alam, Selangor 42300, Malaysia
  • 7 Department of Biochemistry, UCS, Shankar Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan 23200, Pakistan. Electronic address: awdood@awkum.edu.pk
  • 8 Institute of Integrative Biosciences IIB, CECOS University, Peshawar Pakistan
Steroids, 2019 08;148:56-62.
PMID: 31085212 DOI: 10.1016/j.steroids.2019.05.001

Abstract

The current study was aimed to evaluate the anti-leishmanial potentials of β-sitosterol isolated from Ifloga spicata. The anti-leishmanial potential of β-sitosterol is well documented against Leishmania donovani and Leishmania amazonensis but unexplored against Leishmania tropica. Structure of the compound was elucidated by FT-IR, mass spectrometry and multinuclear (1H and 13C) magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The compound was evaluated for its anti-leishmanial potentials against L. tropica KWH23 using in vitro anti-promastigote, DNA interaction, apoptosis, docking studies against leishmanolysin (GP63) and trypanothione reductase (TR) receptors using MOE 2016 software. β-sitosterol exhibited significant activity against leishmania promastigotes with IC50 values of 9.2 ± 0.06 μg/mL. The standard drug glucantaime showed IC50 of 5.33 ± 0.07 µg/mL. Further mechanistic studies including DNA targeting and apoptosis induction via acridine orange assay exhibited promising anti-leishmanial potentials for β-sitosterol. Molecular docking with leishmanolysin (GP63) and trypanothione reductase (TR) receptors displayed the binding scores of β-sitosterol with targets TR and GP63 were -7.659 and -6.966 respectively. The low binding energies -61.54 (for TR) and -33.24 (for GP63) indicate that it strongly bind to the active sites of target receptors. The results confirmed that β-sitosterol have considerable anti-leishmanial potentials and need further studies as potential natural anti-leishmanial agent against L. tropica.

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