Endocrine Abstracts

Placental malaria is one of the prominent conditions resulting in poor pregnancy outcomes. It is characterized by the sequestration of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes and the infiltration of immune cells into the placental interstitium, changing its colour to black due to the deposition of malaria pigment. This study aims to investigate the hematological, hormonal and immunomodulatory activities of aqueous extract of Solanum nigrum leaf on Plasmodium bergei NK65 infection in Gravid Mice. Twenty female gravid albino mice (24.73g±2.15) were randomly divided into 4 groups (I-IV) of five animal each. Group I served as control and group II-IV received distilled water, 500/25 mg/kg body weight of Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and 100 mg/kg of AESNL orally for 3 days, respectively. A thin Blood Film smear was carried out to estimate the number of parasitized red blood cells. The animals were sacrificed under di-ethyl anesthesia on day 18 of gestation and the fetus was weighed and preserved in Bouin solution, while the placenta and spleen were in 10% formalin. The result obtained revealed that there was a significant increase (P < 0.05) in the serum immunological parameters (Tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6), the maternal % parasitemia and weight of the spleen while a significant decrease (P < 0.05) in the serum progesterone and fetal weight were obtained in the untreated group compared to the control. The administration of 100 mg/kg AESNL decreased, white blood cell count, serum tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 concentration, increased the serum progesterone concentration, increased fetal weight, decreased spleen weight, decreased maternal % parasitemia and improved the theilery developmental features of the infected mice. The findings of this study reveals that AEoSNL elicited hormonal, hematological and immunomodulatory activities against NK65 infected gravid mice at the dose investigated, therefore, it can be explored in the development of antimalarial drug targeting placenta malarial subject to further experimentations.