In vivo Prophylactic Evaluation of the Antiplasmodial Property of Ethanol and Hot Water Extracts of Milky Mushroom (Calocybe indica)

Aims: Calocybe indica is commonly known as the milky mushroom and is one of the protein-rich mushrooms that have high medicinal property. Malaria is endemic in Nigeria with 97% of the population of 170 million living in areas of high malaria risk. Hence, in vivo prophylactic antiplasmodial property of milky mushroom extracts was evaluated.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of Microbiology, Federal University of Technology, Akure between February and October, 2017.

Methodology: The experimental mice were fed for four days with different concentrations of the hot water and ethanol extracts before infecting them with Plasmodium berghei (NK 65 species) and observed for another three days.

Results: The results showed that the infection caused the body temperature and weight to reduce from 36.8±0.10°C to 35.1±0.45°C and 17.23±0.33 g to 16.15±0.43 g respectively. The parasitemia count 24 hours after infection with P. berghei on a group that were given the extracts before the infection showed that the extracts had a prophylactic effect on the parasite. Comparatively, the group that was infected without prior treatment recorded 326 parasites per field, the group treated with 400 mg/ml of the ethanol extract of the milky mushroom had two parasites per view. The P. berghei infection also caused a significant decrease in the packed cell volume (PCV) of the mice. Comparatively, the mushroom ethanol extract at 400 mg/ml increased the PCV to 44.50±0.67% from 35.25±1.33% in the control group. The group infected with P. berghei without prior treatment (group F) had less than 30% PCV.

Conclusion: Calocybe indica (milky mushroom) extracts used in this research exerted high prophylactic property against Plasmodium berghei in vivo and caused a significant increase in packed cell volume of the experimental mice. Therefore, milky mushroom could be incorporated into daily food to offer prophylaxis against malaria parasite infections that are on the increase globally.