ANTHELMINTIC ACTIVITY OF EXTRACTS OF CITRUS AURANTIFOLIA (CHRISTM) FRUIT PEELS AGAINST EXPERIMENTAL HELIGMOSOMOIDES BAKERI IN MICE

Abstract

Citrus aurantifolia (Rutaceae) is commonly known as Lime orange. The plant is widely used in African and Asian traditional medicine. This present study was aimed at evaluating the in vivo anthelmintic activity of the extracts of C. aurantifolia fruit peel against Heligmosomoides bakeri (nematode) as a model. The crude methanol extract (CME) was partitioned using solvents of different polarities into ethylacetate (EE), butanol (BE) and aqueous methanol extract (AME). The median lethal doses (LD50) of the extracts were determined in mice. Seventy mice infected with H. bakeri were randomly allocated into 14 groups of 5 mice each and were treated with CME, AME, EE and BE at doses of 250, 500 and 1000 mg/kg. All treatments were administered orally on the 16th, 17th and 18th day post infection. Anthelmintic activity was assessed by comparing the worms recovered from the treated groups with the non-treated control group. At the dose of 1000 mg/kg, BE, CME, EE and AME caused a deparasitization rate of 79, 75, 75 and 51 %, respectively. CME, BE and EE produced a significant (p less than 0.05) deparasitization rate. This study demonstrated that Citrus aurantifolia fruit peels possess anthelmintic activity that might be caused by one or more of the secondary metabolites contained in the plant.