Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications
Curcumin for malaria therapy
Section snippets
Materials and methods
Reagents. Curcumin (Sigma Chemical, St. Louis, MO) was dissolved in 100% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO; Sigma Chemical) and stored in aliquots at −20 °C.
Parasite maintenance. Plasmodium falciparum culture was maintained by the candle jar method [6] using human O positive serum and red blood cells. P. berghei was maintained in Swiss mice obtained from the Central Animal facility, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. Blood obtained from mice with 60–70% parasitemia was diluted in PBS and 0.1
Results
Using [3H]hypoxanthine uptake to assess viability, we determined the effects of curcumin on a chloroquine-resistant strain of P. falciparum carrying the PfCRT-K76T mutation, a molecular marker for chloroquine-resistance [7]. Curcumin inhibited the growth of P. falciparum in a dose-dependent fashion, with an IC50 of ∼5 μM. Increasing doses of curcumin resulted in decreased viability of P. falciparum, with a dose of 50 μM leading to negligible proliferation (Fig. 1). When tested in a
Discussion
Curcumin, a component of the widely used Ayurvedic compound turmeric, is a potent biological compound. Numerous studies have characterized its effects on a wide variety of cellular processes and diseases. Few studies, however, have extended in vitro antimicrobial observations to in vivo models. Only one study to our knowledge has previously examined the effects of curcumin on P. falciparum[3]. In contrast to our study, Rasmussen et al. examined only drug sensitive P. falciparum and did not test
Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by research grants from Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, India, to P.N.R., G.P. and NIH Grant HL-070068 to R.C.R.
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