The pharmacological impact of Astragalus membranaceus against coccidial and bacterial infection in vitro

Background Astragalus polysaccharides (APS) are a novel macromolecule extracted from the herbal plant Astragali radix with potential biological activity such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, anticancer, and immunomodulatory properties. Objectives The present research emphasizes on some of the biological characteristics of this product including its phytochemical screening, its effective LD50, its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticoccidial, and antimicrobial activities in vitro. Materials and methods Phytochemical screening of the tested extract proved that it contained alkaloids, flavonoids, and glycoside components. Testing its efficacy as bactericidal versus Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pasteurella multocida and Staphylococcus aureus its value as a coccidiocidal drug against five chicken Eimeria species oocysts and its effect on the level of DNA genotoxic damage using comet assay proved high significant efficacy (P≤0.05) in the form of marked inhibition zone of bacteria, considerable sporulation inhibition percentage in oocysts as well as high genotoxic damages in the DNA. Result and conclusion The study proved the presence of a direct relationship between the increase in APS concentrations and exposure time and the rate of sporulation inhibition and DNA damage in oocysts subjected to various doses of APS. This DNA damage was determined by marked variations in tail's length (µm), the percentage of DNA in the tail segment, and tail's moment were used to demonstrate this relationship (µm). In conclusion, APS proved to be a potential herbal to have anticoccidial and antibacterial attributes in controlling both infections in chickens.