抄録
Background
This study was to determine the in vitro anthelmintic activity of Prosopis africana (Guill and Perr) Taub (Mimosaceae). P.africana is the only tropical african spp found between the sahel and savannah forests (Toro,2002) commonly known as iron wood,locust beans (English),ubwa,kiriya and ayan (Igbo,Hausa andYoruba languages respectively of Nigeria) (Ajiboye,2009).
Materials and methods
Fresh leaves,seeds and stembark of P.africana were collected from Shika ward, Giwa local government area,Kaduna state and were taken to the Herbarium Department of Biological Sciences Ahmadu Bello University Zaria for identification a voucher number 6908 was alloted. The stem bark was washed then dried at room temperature for 8 days and ground using a mortar and pestle. Soxhlet apparatus was used for the extraction about 300 g ground stem bark in 800ml of methanol yielded 56.23%. The phytochemistry analysis using standard procedures as described by Trease and Evans (2009) revealed the presence of carbohydrates,saponins,flavonoids,tannins,alkaloids,terpenes and sterols. Fresh abomasal contents were collected from slauthered gaots at the abattoir,samples were taken to the laboratory where the worms were picked under a light source.The worms were then crushed to release the eggs, the eggs were collected by floatation technique.Third stage larvae L3 were collected by larval culture. Anthelmintic study was carried out using the egg hatch inhibition (EHI) and larval developmental inhibition (LDI) assays. EHI assay was done by the method of Thoithi et al. (2002). The LDI assay was done according to the World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology guidelines (Coles et al., 1992). Distilled water and Albendazole were used as negative and positive controls respectively for the two studies.
Result
The extract exhibited a concentration-dependent and a time-concentration-dependent anthelmintic activities against the eggs and L3s respectively.
Conclusion
The findings of this research work confirmed the anthelmintic activity of the plant.
Key words: Prosopis africana, extract, anthelmintic
