Abstract
The present study was conducted to investigate the antigiardial activities of Citrullus lanatus var. citroides (wild watermelon) fruits, petroleum ether, ethyl acetate, butanol crude extracts as well as Cucurbitacin E and Cucurbitacin L 2-O-beta-glucoside pure isolated compounds from C. lanatus var. citroides. Cucurbitacin E and Cucurbitacin L 2-O-beta-glucoside were revealed to have strong potent antigiardial activity against Giardia lamlia in vitro with IC50 = 2 and 5 ng/ml after 5 days respectively. The ethyleacetate extract was the best among all examined extracts followed by petroleum ether and butanol with IC50 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5 mu g/ml respectively. The results suggest that all the crude extracts and isolated compounds were active against G. lamblia, hence C. lanatus var. citroides may be recommended as new source for the treatment of giardiasis.