Parasitic diseases(PDs) have led to 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 Wuhan Botanical Garden conducted integrated method to screen and identify antiparasitic compounds targeting enzymes(AChE, LDH, and GR) from H.abyssinica.

Results found that ethyl acetate fraction of H. abyssinica was confirmed to be a powerful 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 way.

The results of this research were published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology under the title “Exploring potential inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase, lactate dehydrogenases, and glutathione reductase fromHagenia abyssinica(Bruce) J.F. Gmel. based on multi-target ultrafiltration-liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and molecular docking”. FAN minxia is the first author, and GUO mingquan is the corresponding author.

This research received support 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.