Natural products derived steroids as potential anti-leishmanial agents; disease prevalence, underlying mechanisms and future perspectives

•Leishmaniasis is among the leading infectious tropical diseases, affecting about 350 million population worldwide.•Every year about 1–1.5 million cases of Cutaneous leishmaniasis and 0.5 million cases of Visceral leishmaniasis are reported.•Unfortunately, only a limited number of drugs are available against leishmaniasis.•Medicinal plants-derived steroidal moieties including steroidal saponins, steroidal alkaloids and phytosterols like β-sitosterol, stigmasterol and pentalinosterol have revealed considerable efficacy.•These steroids mediate their anti-leishmanial effects via liberation of ROS and initiation of apoptotic processes. Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne infection caused by protozoan parasites from the genus leishmania and is among the most neglected tropical diseases. It is highly prevalent disease, affecting about 350 million population worldwide. Only limited number of anti-leishmanial agents are approved for clinical use till now and they are associated with side effects and have limited efficacy. Subsequently, natural products based discovery of more safe and effective drugs against leishmania is under scientific consideration. Various studies reported the efficacy of natural products against intracellular and extracellular forms of leishmania species. This work is aimed to evaluate current literature focused on the anti-leihmanial efficacy of steroidal moieties from natural products and their mechanism of action. Compounds including steroidal saponins, steroidal alkaloids and phytosterols were found to exhibit considerable anti-leishmanial efficacy. For instance, steroidal saponin, (25R)-spirost-5-en-3b-ol,3-O-α-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 → 4)-α-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 → 4)-[a-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 → 2)]-glucopyranoside isolated from A. paradoxum has completely eradicated Leishmania major promastigotes at 50 µg mL−1 dose. Spirostanic saponins isolated from Solanum paniculatum L. were effective against Leishmania amazonensis promastigotes. Turgidosterones isolated from Panicum turgidum exhibited high leishmanicidal potentials against Leishmania donovani promastigotes with IC50 of 4.95–8.03 µg mL−1 and even better activity against amastigotes exhibiting an IC50 of 4.50–9.29 µg mL−1. Likewise, racemoside-A from Asparagus racemosus was found effective against an antimonial sensitive (AG83) and antimonial resistant (GE1F8R) strains of the L. donovani. Moreover, steroidal alkaloids including hookerianamide-1, hookerianamide-H, hookerianamide-J, hookerianamide-K,