IN VIVO ANTI-PLASMODIAL SCREENING OF Nicotiana tabacum AND ITS EFFECTS ON HEPATIC AND RENAL FUNCTION IN SWISS ALBINO MICE

Abstract

Malaria remains one of the leading public health diseases in developing countries and efforts to keep the infection at bay have suffered a lot of setbacks compounded by the increasing cases of resistance and cross resistance to firstline antimalaria drugs. In this study, we investigated the anti-plasmodial efficacy of ethanolic and aqueous extracts of Nicotiana tabacum on Plasmodium berghei infected swiss albino mice and its effects on liver and kidney function. The comparison of changes in parasite load of the infected mice before and after treatment showed that the parasitemia level reduced significantly (p<0.05) in the mice treated with both ethanolic and aqueous extracts of N. tabacum, while there was a significant (p< 0.05) increase in parasitemia level in the untreated mice. The activities of Alkaline phosphatase (ALP), Aspartate transaminase(AST), Alanine transaminase (ALT) and creatinine varied marginally in the treated groups but the values were statistically comparable with control group (untreated) (P>0.05). However, the concentration of urea was statistically higher in treated groups than the control (p<0.05). Our results therefore demonstrate the anti-plasmodial potential of N. tobacum and its relative safety for human consumption at the tested doses.