Artesunate, a potential drug for treatment of Babesia infection
Date
2010Author
Goo, Youn-Kyoung
Terkawi, M. Alaa
Jia, Honglin
Aboge, G. Oluga
Ooka, Hideo
Nelson, Bryce
Kim, Suk
Sunaga, Fujiko
Namikawa, Kazuhiko
Igarashi, Ikuo
Nishikawa, Yoshifumi
Xuan, Xuenan
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The effects of artesunate, a water-soluble artemisinin derivative, against Babesia species, including Babesia bovis, Babesia gibsoni and Babesia microti were studied. Cultures of B. bovis and B. gibsoni were treated with 0.26, 2.6, 26 and 260 μM artesunate, showing inhibition of parasite growth at concentrations equal to and greater than 2.6 μM artesunate by days 3 post-treatment for B. gibsoni and B. bovis in a dose-dependent manner. Consistent with in vitro experiments, artesunate was effective in the treatment of mice infected with B. microti at doses equal to and greater than 10 mg/kg of body weight on days 8–10 post-infection. Taken together, these results suggest that artesunate could be a potential drug against Babesia infection.
URI
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1383576910001017http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/35865