ABSTRACT:
Helminthiases are the most infectious parasitic and zoonotic diseases all over the world, which were largely controlled and treated with natural sources inorder to replace few synthetic compounds, exhibiting high rate of drug resistance and unwanted effects. Sechium edule (SEF) (chayote) is a kind of gourd fruit, enriched with alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides, saponins and triterpenoids. It is commonly used to treat constipation, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidaemic, hepatitis, epilepsy, cancer and urolithiasis. It has been utilised to prepare some toxic free cosmetics including cleanser, moisturizer, deodorant, mouth wash, shaving cream and shampoos. Generally, those phytons especially flavonoids are said to own the mechanism of redox system inhibition, cell membrane disruption and antagonising the energy producing molecular proteins in the helminths due to their structural makeup for their effective vermicidal strategy. Hence, we hypothised that SEF may exhibit anthelmintic activity due to the presence of promising active compounds and were aimed to carried out in vitro antimotility assay of dried ethanolic extract of SEF in five different concentrations such as T1 - 10mg/ml, T2 - 20mg/ml, T3 - 50mg/ml, T4 - 80mg/ml and T5 - 100 mg/ml in Pheretima posthuma. This study unveiled the dose dependent anthelmintic property of SEF using distilled water as control (C) and piperazine citrate as standard (S). The average time of paralysis (P) and the time of death (D) of Pheretima posthuma for T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and S in P(D) [(mean±SEM), P<0.05] were found to be 40±0.6min (85±0.8 min), 32±0.5 min (72±0.min), 20±0.5 min (56±0.4min), 12±0.2 min (40±0.8 min), 9±0.9 min (25±0.2min) and 23±0.4 min (62±0.3min) respectively and the dose 50mg/ml of SEF was found to exhibit the nearer anthelmintic effect to S. Overall, this study had revealed the importance of anthelmintic property of SEF and laddered the step to preclinical and clinical studies.