Tajudeen O. Jimoh
(YaBiNapa) Yaounde-Bielefeld Graduate School, Thailand
Title: Biochemical characterization of Moringa oleifera leaves for the identification and isolation of peptides and enzymes having anti-parasitic potentials
Biography
Biography: Tajudeen O. Jimoh
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Recent studies on the beneficial health effects of plants have raised the interest of researchers on the possible preventive and protective actions of plant peptides against endoparasites. However, parasitic infections are on the increase in sub-Sahara Africa and its complications are directly proportional to the mortality rate and reduced productivity. It is worthy of note that the protozoa, nematodes, trematodes, and cestodes, which affect more than 30% of the human population pose high level of risk to the world. Moreover, the limitation of the existing vaccinations due to parasite resistant coupled with the expensive cost of available synthetic therapeutics drugs have necessitated the need to search for more potent and cheap plant-based alternatives anti-parasitic drugs. Moringa oleifera (Family: Moringaceae) is a tropical plant with scanty information on the possible mechanism by which it elicits its anti-parasitic properties. CONLUSION: Essentially, aminopeptidases have been proposed as being responsible for releasing single amino acids from proteins; or peptides and there have been divergent views on where this takes place and which enzymes are responsible. It is probable that when plasmodium falciparum enzyme is inhibited it blocked hemoglobin degradation which starves the parasite to death. Therefore, this study is investigating peptides from Moringa oleifera leaves with possible inhibitory properties against plasmodium falciparum. To this end, this approach may provide fundamental mechanism for the characterization of novel bioactive compound from plant origin for the management of malaria.