Artemether administered together with haemin damages schistosomes in vitro
Shuhua, Xiao ; Chollet, Jacques ; Utzinger, Jürg ; Matile, Hugues ; Jinyan, Mei ; Tanner, Marcel
In: Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2001, vol. 95, no. 1, p. 67-71
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- We conducted experiments in vitro to assess the effect of artemether in combination with haemin on adult Schistosoma japonicum, S. mansoni and S. haematobium. When schistosomes were maintained in a medium containing artemether at concentrations of 20 μg/mL or less for 72 h, no apparent effect on the schistosomes was seen. When the medium contained 50 or 100 μg/mL haemin as well as artemether, the schistosomes showed decreased motor activity 2-24 h after exposure, which was followed by the staining of the whole worm body a reddish-yellow colour, dilatation of the intestine, and extensive vesiculation of the tegument. Some of the schistosomes died 24 h after exposure, and almost all died within 48-72 h. When schistosomes were exposed to the same concentrations of haemin alone, they were stained a light yellow colour but there was no apparent effect on their survival. Our findings suggest that artemether interacts with haemin to exert a toxic effect on the worms, which might be of importance in the further elucidation of the mechanism of action of artemether on schistosomes