Pinworm infections are one of the common problems in laboratory rodents and man. At present there are only few drugs against intestinal helminths, and new drugs are urgently needed to cope up any future risk of drug resistance. Interest in plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) has risen considerably in the recent years for the discovery and development of new drugs. In the present study, we explored the in vitro and in vivo anthelmintic potentials of two pentacyclic triterpenoids, ursolic acid (UA) and betulinic acid (BA), the important PSMs of many medicinal plants, against Syphacia obvelata (Nematoda: Oxyuridae), a common pinworm of mice. The results of this study indicated that in both, in vitro and in vivo assays, BA showed comparatively better anthelmintic effects than UA. In the in vitro assay, 1.00 mg/ml concentration of BA showed paralysis and mortality of worms in 1.20 ± 0.04 and 2.30 ± 0.03 h, respectively. In the in vivo assay, a single 10.00 mg/kg dose of BA, administered for 5 days, revealed 68.78% reduction in egg counts and 84.08% reduction in worm counts of infected mice. The present study suggests that BA holds a great promise to be pursued further for detailed testing against some other representative group of helminth parasites.
Keywords: Anthelmintic; Betulinic acid; Pinworm; Scanning electron microscopy; Syphacia obvelata; Triterpenoids; Ursolic acid.