A Novel Niosomal Combination of Selenium Coupled with Glucantime against Leishmania tropica

Abstract

There is no effective treatment modality available against different forms of leishmaniasis. Therefore, the aim of this study was to improve the penetration and efficacy of selenium and glucantime coupled with niosomes and compared them with their simple forms alone on in vitro susceptibility assays. In this study, the niosomal formulations of selenium and in combination with glucantime were prepared. The size and morphology of the niosomal formulations were characterized and the effectivity of the new formulation was also evaluated using in vitro MTT assay, intra-macrophage model, and gene expression profile. From the results obtained, no cytotoxicity effect was observed for niosomal and simple forms of drugs, as alone or in combination. Niosomal formulations of the drugs significantly showed more inhibitory effects (P ≤ 0.001) than the simple drugs when the selectivity index was considered. The gene expression levels of Interleukin (IL-10) significantly decreased, while the level of IL-12 and metacaspase significantly increased (P ≤ 0.001). The results of the present study showed that selenium plus glucantime niosome possess a potent anti-leishmanial effect and enhanced their lethal activity as evidenced by the in vitro experiments.

Keywords: Leishmania tropica; anti-leishmanial effect; cytokine; glucantime; niosomes; selenium.

Fig. 1

Microscopic images of Span/Tween 40 (molar ratio=5:5) selenium niosome (A), and Span/Tween 40 (molar ratio=5:5) selenium plus glucantime niosome (B).

Fig. 2

Comparison of inhibitory effect selenium, selenium niosome, selenium plus glucantime niosome and glucantime plus selenium niosome, on Leishmania tropica promastigotes with glucantime as a standard drug, by MTT assay (*P<0.05).

Fig. 3

Inhibitory effect of selenium plus glucantime on promastigotes of Leishmania tropica.

Fig. 4

The gene expression profiles of (A) metacaspase, (B) IL-10, and (C) IL-12p40 on the Leishmania tropica treated by the selenium plus glucantime niosome and glucantime in comparison with untreated control (*P<0.001) as measured by using real-time PCR.