Abstract
Abstract Background The fact that many laboratory rodent colonies were found to be parasite contaminated suggests a need for eradication to improve their quality for research and testing. However, the most anthelmintic are poisonous, and their application always entails some hazards to the host and interferes with the interpretation of the final results. The use of bryostatin as a potential anthelmintic drug is still a matter of controversy. Therefore, the present work was designed to examine the naturally extracted product bryostatin-1 from a marine bryozoan as a possible anthelmintic agent against Pinworms Syphacia muris. Results Light and scanning electron microscopy revealed normal appearance of worms collected from the infected groups with S. muris and untreated by bryostatin-1, while those collected from the bryostatin-1 treated rats revealed drastic morphological changes in the mouth parts, anus, and cuticle of all treated worms. Significant effects of bryostatin-1 on Syphacia infection were also detected in rats regarding the final body weights, average food consumption, and organ weights. Moreover, the drug has also improved the serum biochemical changes significantly in the infected rats nearly to the normal levels. Conclusions The study has provided morphological evidence of obvious effect of bryostatin-1 on the movement and feeding behavior of the parasite that lead to consequent weakness and death as well as improvement of the biochemical changes in the infected rats. The present study concluded that bryostatin-1 can be used as anthelmintic agent, although further studies are needed to insure the drug efficacy.