Pharmacochemistry of Iranian Flora Artemisia oliveriana and its Antimalarial Effects on Plasmodium berghei in Vivo

The aim of this study was to evaluate antimalarial effects of Iranian flora
Artemisia oliveriana on Plasmodium berghei in vivo and photochemistry of its
natural effective components. This is the first application of Iranian flora A.
oliveriana on murine malaria in Iran. The aerial parts of A. oliveriana were
collected at the flowering stage from Qum and Isfahan provinces, in central part
of Iran in 2010. The aerial parts were air-dried at room temperature and then
powdered and macerated in methanol and filtered and it was extracted and dried
by Rotary Evaporator. The toxicity of herbal extract was assessed on four groups
of naive NMRI mice and it‘s antimalarial efficacy was investigated on infected P.
berghei animals. The significance of differences was determined by student‘s ttest using Graph Pad prism software. The results indicated no toxicity was
observed even by high concentration of herbal extract by measuring body weight,
survival rate and hepato/ splenomegaly. It is demonstrated that total extract A.
oliveriana possesses therapeutic inactivity against P. berghei which indicates its
antimalarial effects in vivo on NMRI mice.