Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease that currently affects people among 98 countries and causes significant morbidity and mortality. Current chemotherapeutic intervention is unsatisfactory and has various limitations that highlight the necessity to develop safe and effective therapeutic approaches from natural products.

The main objective of current study was the evaluation of the antileishmanial activity along with toxicity assessment of selected plant extracts.

The ethanolic leaves extracts of selected plants were evaluated for their qualitative and quantitative phytochemical screening by standard protocols. The antioxidant potential of plant extracts was determined by total antioxidant capacity, ferric reducing power and DPPH radical scavenging assays. The cytotoxicity analysis using brine shrimp lethality assay and in-vitro antileishmanial activity against promastigotes of L. tropica (Accession# MN891719) were also evaluated.

The preliminary examination of crude extracts revealed that P. armeniaca showed the highest total phenolic and flavonoid content (279.62±5.40µgGAE/mgDW and 205.70 ±2.41µgQA/mgDW, respectively), among others. P. armeniaca showed strongest antioxidants (120.37±4.90 µgAAE/mgDW) and FRP values (278.71±1.03µgAAE/mgDW). All the plant extracts showed cytotoxicity in safety range >1000µg/ml except F. glomerata having LC50 values of 454.34 µg/ml. In the present study, P. communis and P. pashia showed some level of activity (LC50 56.68 and 60.95µg/ml respectively) while P. armeniaca demonstrated the highest antileishmanial activity (LC50 16.18µg/ml).

The findings are highly encouraging so, further and extensive investigations of P. arminica should be carried out; especially bio guided fractionation to identify the active fraction and further chemical characterization of structure.