Parasitic diseases (PDs) cause high morbidity and mortality worldwide. As one of the main control strategies for PDs, chemotherapy is limited by drug resistance, toxicity, and other side effects. It's urgent to search for alternative therapies for PDs. Hagenia abyssinica, native to Africa, is traditionally used to treat intestinal parasitic diseases, while the potential antiparasitic compounds remain ambiguous.

Researchers from the Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted an integrated method to screen and identify antiparasitic compounds targeting enzymes (AChE, LDH, and GR) from H. abyssinica.

They found that the ethyl acetate fraction of H. abyssinica was confirmed to be a potent antitrypanosomal and AChE inhibitory fraction, in which six compounds (corilagin, brevifolin carboxylic acid, brevifolin, quercetin, methyl brevifolin carboxylate and methyl ellagic acid) were identified and recognized as AChE inhibitors, while methyl brevifolin carboxylate was also identified as LDH and GR inhibitor.

The in vitro assay verified the inhibitory activity of four commercially available AChE inhibitors (corilagin, quercetin, brevifolin carboxylic acid, and methyl brevifolin carboxylate).

This study screens AChE, LDH, and GR inhibitors from H. abyssinica and discovers promising compounds with antiparasitic properties in a multidimensional manner.

This study was published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology and it was supported from the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province and the Opening Project of Hubei Key Laboratory of Purification and Application of Plant Anti-cancer Active Ingredients.