PURPOSE To investigate the ability of a commercial extract from the medicinal plant Artemisia annua to modulate production of the cytokine, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and the cyclooxygenase (COX) inflammatory marker, prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) in activated neutrophils. METHODS Neutrophils were harvested from rat whole blood and cultured in the presence of plant extract or control sampl...

Plants have been used as a traditional medicine for the treatment of malaria. Plants may provide drugs directly such as quinine from cinchona bark or they may provide template molecules on which to base further new structures by organic synthesis—artemisinin from Artemisia annua. At the NIMR, efforts are being made to do primary screening of crude extracts of plant products to screen different ...

The present paper is a continuation of our study on the Chinese traditional herb Arternisia annua L. [1— 5], describing several additional constituents: quinghaosu IV and V (V, VII), quinghao acid (VIII) [6], chrysosplenol (VIa) [7] and a paraffinic alcohol; V, VII and VIII are compounds with unreported structures.

Malaria is a real and constant danger to nearly half of the world's population of 7.4 billion people. In 2015, 212 million cases were reported along with 429,000 estimated deaths. The World Health Organization recommends artemisinin-based combinatorial therapies, and the artemisinin for this purpose is mainly isolated from the plant Artemisia annua. However, the plant supply of artemisinin is i...

From Artemisia annua L., a new oxidoreductase (Red 1) was cloned, sequenced and functionally characterized. Through bioinformatics, heterologous protein expression and enzyme substrate conversion assays, the elucidation of the enzymatic capacities of Red1 was achieved. Red1 acts on monoterpenoids, and in particular functions as a menthone:neomenthol oxidoreductase. The kinetic parameter k(cat)/...

Schistosomiasis, a neglected tropical disease, imposes substantial health and economic burdens on impoverished groups living in predominantly rural areas. Praziquantel (PZQ) is the only drug available for treatment, it not completely efficacious. Artemisia annua afra infusions were proposed to possess antischistosomal activities recently retracted publication of clinical trial, leading our inve...

The anticoccidial effect of Artemisia annua and Pimpinella anisum on Eimeria tenella infection (1500 oocysts/chicken) has been studied. The products were used as oil administered 7.5% in water and as powder 1.5% in food. The effects of A. annua and P. anisum on E. tenella infection were assessed by clinical signs, mortality, fecal oocyst shedding, lesional score, body weight gain and feed conve...

Malaria, known as the "fevers," has been treated for over three thousand years in China with extracts of plants of the genus Artemisia (including Artemisia annua, A. opiacea, and A. lancea) from which the active compound is artemisin, a sesquiterpene that is highly effective in the treatment of the disease, especially against young forms of the parasite. South American Indians in the seventeent...