Toxoplasma gondii

Wang, Lu, Zhai, Bintao, Wang, Chen, Elsheikha, Hany M., Guo, Haiting, Zheng, Xiao-Nan, Zhou, Chun-Xue & Zhu, Xing-Quan, 2024, Glabridin exhibits potent inhibitory effects against ToxoplaSMa gondii in vitro and in vivo, Parasites & Vectors (522) 17 (1), pp. 1-11 : 4

Glabridin inhibits T. gondii growth in vitro

To assess the toxicity of glabridin on Vero cells in vitro, a CCK-8 assay was performed. Te results, shown in Fig. 1a , demonstrated that glabridin exhibited dosedependent cytotoxicity after 24 h. Specifically, at the concentration of 5 μg/ml, Vero cell growth remained at 99.05% of the control (P> 0.05). In contrast, exposure to 7.5 μg/ml of glabridin reduced the growth rate to 74.0% (P <0.0001). Tus, glabridin is considered safe for Vero cells at concentrations ≤ 5 μg/ml.

To evaluate the anti- T. gondii activity of glabridin, we examined the proliferation of RH strain tachyzoites treated with 5 μg/ml glabridin or 0.1% DMSO (vehicle). As shown in Fig. 1b , glabridin significantly (P <0.0001) inhibited the extracellular activity of T. gondii tachyzoites in a time-dependent manner. Additionally, we assessed its effects on intracellular parasites. Host cells were infected with RH tachyzoites for 3 h, after which extracellular parasites were removed, and fresh media containing either 0.1% DMSO or glabridin was added. After 48 h of culture, glabridin significantly reduced the growth of intracellular T. gondii tachyzoites, as shown in Fig. 1c (P <0.0001).

Figures

Fig. 1 Impact of glabridin treatment on Toxoplasma gondii development in vitro and host cell viability. a Cytotoxicity of glabridin on Vero cells. Glabridin demonstrated low cytotoxicity in Vero cells. Cells were exposed to increasing concentrations of glabridin (0, 2.5,5, 7.5, 10, and 20 µg/ml) for 24 h. Cell viability was measured using the Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay,with results expressed as a percentage relative to the untreated control group. Data represent the mean± SD of three independent experiments. *P <0.05; ****P <0.0001. b Treatment with glabridin (5 μg/ml) significantly reduced the activity of extracellular T.gondii RH tachyzoites.****P<0.0001. c Inhibitory effect of glabridin (5 μg/ml) on the replication of intracellular T.gondii RH tachyzoites. Control samples (Ctrl) were collected 3 h post infection, while treatment groups were collected 48 h post infection, showing a marked decrease in parasite replication. ****P <0.0001