Antileishmanial, antioxidant, and cytotoxic activities of Quercus infectoria Olivier extract.

Currently, there is no effective vaccine available, and chemotherapy is the main approach for treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL). During recent decades, studies have demonstrated that a number of plant-derived compounds may act as new therapeutic tools against leishmaniasis. This study was evaluated the antileishmanial, antioxidant, and cytotoxic activities of Quercus infectoria Olivier (oak) extract. The total amount of phenolic and flavonoid compounds was measured in oak extract. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis was also performed to determine the amount of quercetin and gallic acid in this plant. This extract (0-80g/mL) was evaluated in vitro against promastigote and intracellular amastigote forms of Leishmania major (MRHO/IR/75/ER) using MTT assay and in a macro-phage model, respectively. Then oak extract was tested on CL in infected male BALB/c mice with L. major in order to evaluate the antileishmanial activity topically. Moreover, cytotoxicity effects of oak in murine macrophage cells were tested by MTT assay. Antioxidative activity of oak was also determined by the 2,2-diphenyl-1,1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) scavenging test. The amount of phenolic and flavonoid compounds in the oak extract was 57.50 and 1.86%, respectively. The amount of quercetin and gallic acid in the oak extract was 0.0064 and 0.22%, respectively. The findings revealed that oak significantly (P<0.05) inhibited the growth rate of promastigote of (IC50 12.65μg/mL) and amastigotes (IC50 10.31μg/mL) as a dose-dependent response. In the in vivo assay, after 4 weeks of treatment, 91.6, 66.66, and 50% recovery was observed in the infected mice treated with 20, 10, and 5mg/kg of oak extract, respectively. After treatment of the infected mice with the concentration of 10 and 20mg/kg of oak, the mean diameter of lesions, parasite load and mean number of parasites was significantly (P<0.05) reduced. Selectivity index of greater than 10 for oak revealed that oak extract had no cytotoxic effects on macrophage cells. Moreover, DPPH test demonstrated that radical inhibition occurred at greater power with increasing the concentration of oak. To conclude, the present study showed potent antileishmanial and antioxidant activity of oak extract; whereas this plant had no toxic effect on mammalian cells.