BackgroundAs per estimates by WHO in 2021 almost half of the world's population was at risk of malaria and > 0.6 million deaths were attributed to malaria. Therefore, the present study was aimed to explore the antimalarial activity of extracts derived from the leaves of the plant Anacardium occidentale L., which has been used traditionally for the treatment of malaria. Different extracts of A.occidentale leaves were prepared and tested for their inhibitory activity against recombinant P. falciparum transketolase (rPfTK) enzyme, in vitro. Further, growth inhibitory activity against cultivated blood stage P. falciparum parasites (3D7 strain), was studied using SYBR Green fluorescence-based in vitro assays. Acute toxicity of the hydro alcoholic extracts of leaves of A. occidentale (HELA) at different concentrations was evaluated on mice and Zebra fish embryos. HELA showed 75.45 +/- 0.35% inhibitory activity against the recombinant PfTk and 99.31 +/- 0.08% growth inhibition against intra-erythrocytic stages of P. falciparum at the maximum concentration (50 mu g/ml) with IC50 of 4.17 +/- 0.22 mu g/ml. The toxicity test results showed that the heartbeat, somite formation, tail detachment and hatching of embryos were not affected when Zebra fish embryos were treated with 0.1 to 10 mu g/ml of the extract. However, at higher concentrations of the extract, at 48 h (1000 mu g/ml) and 96 h (100 mu g/ml and 1000 mu g/ml, respectively) there was no heartbeat in the fish embryos. In the acute oral toxicity tests performed on mice, the extract showed no toxicity up to 300 mg/kg body weight in mice.ConclusionThe hydro-alcoholic extract of leaves of A. occidentale L. showed potent antimalarial activity against blood stage P. falciparum. Based on the observed inhibitory activity on the transketolase enzyme of P. falciparum it is likely that this enzyme is the target for the development of bioactive molecules present in the plant extracts. The promising anti-malarial activity of purified compounds from leaves of A. occidentale needs to be further explored for development of new anti-malarial therapy.

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