In vitro and in vivo evaluation of efficacy of berberine chloride: Phyto-alternative approach against Trypanosoma evansi infection

Current chemotherapy against the Surra organism, Trypanosoma evansi has several limitations in terms of efficacy, toxicity, availability and emerging resistance. These reasons make the search of new chemo-preventive and chemo-therapeutic agent with high potency and low toxicity. Alkaloid phyto-molecules, berberine has shown promising anti-kinetoplastid activity against T. cruzi, T. congolense, T. brucei, Leishmania donovani and L. tropica. However, till date, there is no investigation of therapeutic efficacy of berberine chloride (BC) against T. evansi. The IC₅₀ value of BC for growth inhibition of T. evansi at 24 h of culture was calculated as 12.15 µM. The specific selectivity index (SSI) of BC was calculated as 19.01 and 10.43 against Vero cell line and Equine PBMC’s, respectively. Thirteen drug target genes affecting various metabolic pathways were studied to investigate the mode of trypanocidal action of BC. In transcript analysis, the mRNA expression of arginine kinase 1 remained refractory to exposure with BC, which provides metabolic plasticity in adverse environmental conditions. In contrary, rest all the drug target gene were down-regulated, which indicates that drug severely affect DNA replication, cell proliferation, energy homeostasis, redox homeostasis and calcium homeostasis of T. evansi, leading to the death of parasite in low concentrations. It is the first attempt to investigate in vitro anti-trypanosomal activity of BC against T. evansi. These data imply that phytochemicals as alternative strategies can be explored in the future as an alternative treatment for Surra in animal.