Haematological and anti-oxidant changes associated with chloroquine resistance reversal by leaf extract of <i>Moringa oleifera</i> Lam

Abstract

Anti-oxidant and heamatological indices in mice passaged with quinine resistant Plasmodium berghei treated with chloroquine co-administered with flavonoid rich anti-plasmodial fraction of Moringa oleifera leaves were determined in this study. Using Rane’s test, 60 male albino mice were randomized into 10 groups of six mice each. Nine groups were inoculated with quinine resistant strains of Plasmodium berghei and treated with tween 80, 10 mg/kg chloroquine (CQ) co-administered with graded concentrations of fractions of Moringa oleifera leaves, and standard artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) drug, Artemether lumefantrin at a dose of 1.14/6.85 mg/kg, while the uninfected Tenth Group was treated with tween 80. In addition to the parasitaemia suppression, malondialdehyde (MDA), enzymic anti-oxidant activities, non enzymic anti-oxidants concentrations and heamatological indices were determined from blood collected by ocular puncture using standard methods. Phytochemical profiling of fraction was done using standard methods. The extract co-administration with 10 mg/kg CQ significantly (p<0.05) dose and time dependently suppressed parasitaemia in the treated groups with total parasite clearance observed in the ACT and CQ-fraction treated-groups by day 9. Mean
plasma MDA concentration were significantly (p<0.05) decreased in the CQ-fraction treatments when compared with the ACT treatment. Mean packed cell volume and white blood cell counts were decreased but not significantly (p>0.05) in the CQ-fraction treated groups when compared to the ACT treated-group. The finding of this study has demonstrated the CQ resistance reversal of extract of M. oleifera leaves with amelioration of malarial-induced haematological and oxidative stress.

Keywords: resistance reversal, Moringa oleifera, co-administration, anti-oxidants