Evaluación in vitro de la actividad de aceites esenciales de plantas colombianas sobre Leishmania braziliensis

leishmaniasis is zoonosis that in h uman host can affect skin, mucosa and viscera, when a flagelar protozoo is phagocyted by macrophages after bit of phlebotomineo insect. in colombia, cutaneous leishmaniasis is produced by subgenus viannia parasites, genus that includes species like leishmania panamensis (l), l. braziliensis y l. guyanensis. clinical treatment requires the administration of effective drugs that induce severe adverse effects in the patient treated. additionally, the parasite had generated a drug-resistance, which promotes a reduction in this kind of therapeutic schedule. in the searching of new and safer therapeutics alternatives to leishmaniasis control, natural products are a important source of active molecules with pharmacological activity. in this study we reported the antileishmanial activity of 13 essentials oils of different colombians plants (lauraceae, rutaceae, verbenaceae, lamiaceae, zingiberaceae, myristicaceae, cardiopteridaceae y pinaceae) using l. braziliensis promastigotes. the effective concentration 50 (ec50) was 87,8 ± 55,51 μg/ml, 265,5 ± 7,5 μg/ml and 17,4 ±0,43 μg/ml for essentials oils of persea caerulea. fruit, lippia alba leaves and rosmarinus officinalis leaves, respectively, which permit suggest us, a parasitocide property. although, it is necessary the cytotoxic effect study on macrophages as infection target cells, result promissory the antileishmanial effect direct to promastigote form, which can be comparable with the effect observed to pentamidine, drugs to a difference of antimonial drugs, is not a prodrug that require to be metabolized into macrophage. in other words, essentials oils would contain active principles lethal against free forms and maybe, against intracellular leishmania spp forms that need further studies to be considered as therapeutic alternative to leishmaniasis cutaneous control.