Effect in vitro of artemisinine and its derivatives on Plasmodium falciparum

This paper reports the in vitro evaluation of antimalarial efficacy of artemisinine (qinghaosu) and its derivatives-artemether (methyl-dihydroartemisinine) and sodium artesunate (sodium dihydroartemisinine hemisuccinate; 804-Na) against Plasmodium falciparum. These drugs were tested for their activities with microtechnique against FCC-1/HN strain of the parasite, which was isolated from a malarial patient in Hainan Island in 1977 and cultured by Trager and Jensen's candle jar method. Artemisinine, artemether and sodium artesunate at concentrations as low as 1.99, 2.19 and 0.14 ng/ml, inhibited the growth of half of the parasitemia (ED50) at the end of 48 h after culturing. ED50 of chloroquine used as a reference drug was 2.24 ng/ml. Among the compounds tested sodium artesunate was the most effective one and its chloroquine equivalent was 16.1. The therapeutic effects of artemisinine and artemether were similar to that of chloroquine.