Phytochemicals Screening and Anthelmintic Activity of Some Therapeutic Plants Against Pheretima posthuma

Abstract

Anthelmintic drugs refer to medicines used to indulge parasitic helminth worm infections in humans or animals. Antihelmintic drugs kill parasites by attaching themselves to muscle and nerve cells, which paralyzes and ultimately kills the parasite; preventing the cells from transporting glucose and preventing the development of new worms from adult worms. The objective of the present work is to examine the in vitro anthelmintic action of ethanolic extracts of three therapeutic plants such as Tagetes erecta, Curcuma longa, and Laurus nobilis, wherein Pheretima posthuma was used as a test worm. Phytochemical constituents of plants’ ethanolic extracts were determined following standard procedure. All three plant extracts have shown antioxidant properties. All the plant extracts were applied in vitro against Pheretima posthuma, and the times of paralysis (ToP) and death (ToD) of the earthworm were determined. Albendazole was used as a reference compound, and distilled water was used as a control. The ethanolic extract of the rhizome of Curcuma longa showed a notable anthelmintic effect, as demonstrated by the worms’ least paralyzing time and death time compared to other studied plant extracts. Every crude extract displayed potential anthelmintic activity in a concentration and time-dependent manner at all dosage levels. Of all the extracts, the maximum concentration at 15 mg/mL exhibited considerably (p < 0.05) higher nematocidal activity when compared to the control. All of the plants under investigation were shown to be effective against Pheretima posthuma, and further pharmacological and toxicological studies of the plants would be beneficial in the development of novel herbal anthelmintic medications.