The long term objectives of our study are to develop chemotherapeutical agents of schistosomiasis from ethnomedical plants. These folklore plants will be used also to develop molluscicides against Biomphalaria glabrata, snail host of Schistosoma mansoni. Our immediate goals are to make a comprehensive laboratory evaluation of some potential plants that produced excellent results in a small scale project. The parameters to be assessed as plant chemotherapeutics will be: efficacy against adult worm, egg development, mice blood constituents, liver fibrosis and circulating antibodies. These plants will be assessed as molluscicides by analyzing lethal doses (LD50 and LD90) using Probit analysis, slope curves, effect on snail stage-size array, stability at different environmental conditions such as pH, turbidity, and temperature. The effect of the molluscicides on the parasite larval stages will also be evaluated.
| Frame, A D; Rios-Olivares, E; De Jesus, L et al. (1998) Plants from Puerto Rico with anti-Mycobacterium tuberculosis properties. P R Health Sci J 17:243-52 |
