Phytochemical and in vivo antimalaria studies on Cleome viscosa Linn. whole plant

Cleome viscosa Linn (Cleomaceae) is a medicinal plant used widely in ethnomedicine for the management of various ailments such as fever, inflammation, infantile convulsions, liver diseases, bronchitis and diarrhea.

This research was carried out to evaluate the in vivo antimalarial activity of the methanolic whole plant extract against early, residual (repository) and established malarial infections in Swiss albino mice at a dose range of 100 – 800 mg/kg using chloroquine sensitive stain of Plasmodium berghei NK-65. Chloroquine at 20 mg/kg was used as positive control for early and established infection while pyrimethamine at 1.2 mg/kg/day was used as positive control for residual infection test.

The results which showed significant (p < 0.05) dose dependent chemo suppressive activities of methanolic extract of C. viscosa whole plant as well as the various partitioned fractions in all the three test models will be presented.