Abstract
The present study aims at finding efficient alternatives among ethno-veterinary herbs. Ascaridia galli eggs isolated from the worm uterus were exposed in vitro to, 9 methanolic extracts (ME) in dimethyl sulfoxide (1%) from the cultivated plant species Achillea millefolium (AM), Artemisia absinthium (AA), Artemisia vulgaris (AV), Cicerbita alpina (CA), Cichorium intybus (CI), Inula helenium (IH), Origanum vulgare (OV), Tanacetum vulgare (TV), Tanacetum parthenium (TP), positive (flubendazole) and negative controls. The ability of different ME concentrations (0.5, 0.325, 0.2 mg/ml) to affect the embryonation rate of A.galli was assessed in duplicate/ME/concentration. Eggs’ embryonic development (ED) was evaluated (560 eggs/replicate) from the day of egg isolation until day 28, resulting in the examination of 40,320 eggs. Analysis performed using generalized linear mixed model, stating a negative binomial distribution, having plant species and concentration as fixed effect and day as repeated measure. The highest ME concentration of the species CA and TV showed significant lower (P < 0.05) ED estimated at 35 (± 3.17) and 38% (± 3.29) followed by TP and IH with 40 (± 4.02) and 44% (± 4.47) consecutively. Lower tested concentrations had similar patterns with CA and TV having the best performance, showing a dose dependent effect. ME extracts obtained from mentioned plant species have promising results in inhibiting ED, contributing to the identification of alternative anthelmintic treatments against A. galli.
The present study is part of the “HERBAL” project that has received funding from the GECT "Euregio Tirolo-Alto Adige-Trentino, 3rd call.