Tegumental alteration and immunological changes in murine schistosomiasis mansoni after treatment with artemesia extract

ABSTRACT

The present work was designed to evaluate the effect of an Egyptian strain of artemesia; namely, Artemesia inculta as a schistosomicidal agent. After infection of mice with 100 cercariae, they were divided according to the duration of infection into group I [22 days] and group II [49 days]; each group was further subdivided into infected control and treated subgroups. Mice in the treated groups received artemesinin in a dose of 800 mg/kg intragastrically 7, 14 and 21 days post infection. The artemesinin extract was found to be more effective in reducing the number of female more than male worms in both hepatic and portomesenteric systems. No obvious changes could be detected on the tegument of both male and female worms in the treated adult group compared with the infected control. These results demonstrated the role of artemether in eliciting a high level of anti- SWAP total IgG and its subclass IgGI that may have a role together with artemether in eliminating schistosomes and share in the damage process on the tegument of juvenile stages but not adult stages