Antileishmania activity of Levandula officinalis essence against Leishmania major in in vitro media

Recently with the increase of drug resistance in curing diseases, especially parasitic diseases, and also due to the side effects of chemical compositions, the use of herbal drugs in curing parasitic diseases has increased significantly throughout the world. The present study was designed and performed to investigate the antileishmania effects of Levandula essence and to compare it with glucantime. In this experimental study, first the essential oil was extracted from the fresh dried and powdered plant by steam distillation method. Then, essentials with the concentration of 0.5, 1.5, 5, 10, 15 and 20 percent and glucantime with the concentration of 33.8% were added to Leishmania major culture media, separately. The media contained 1 × 106 promastigotes of parasite per milliliter. The number of alive parasites, after adding the essential and the drug at the times of 24, 48, 72 hours, were counted by the 10% trypan blue vital staining and the use of Neubauer lam. The results showed that the proliferation rate of promastigotes after adding the plant essential declined significantly compared to the control group (P<0.05). In concentration of 10% or more, the leishmaniocidal effect was also observed in a way that in hour 72 no viable parasite was observed in the mentioned groups. Also, in concentration of 0.5, 1.5 and 5 percent, a significant difference was observed in the number of viable parasites compared to the chemical drug group (P<0.05). This study indicates that Levandula essential has inhibitory and lethal effects on the promastigotes form of Leishmania major in in vitro. Therefore, this is suggested that more studies is conducted in order to identify the antileishmaniosis of Levandula on the amastigote form of parasite.