Comparative tissue pharmacokinetics and efficacy of moxidectin, abamectin and ivermectin in lambs infected with resistant nematodes: Impact of drug treatments on parasite P-glycoprotein expression

Abstract

The high level of resistance to the macrocyclic lactones has encouraged the search for strategies to optimize their potential as antiparasitic agents. There is a need for pharmaco-parasitological studies addressing the kinetic-dynamic differences between various macrocyclic lactones under standardized in vivo conditions. The current work evaluated the relationship among systemic drug exposure, target tissue availabilities and the pattern of drug accumulation within resistant Haemonchus contortus for moxidectin, abamectin and ivermectin. Drug concentrations in plasma, target tissues and parasites were measured by high performance liquid chromatography. Additionally, the efficacy of the three molecules was evaluated in lambs infected with resistant nematodes by classical parasitological methods. Furthermore, the comparative determination of the level of expression of P-glycoprotein (P-gp2) in H. contortus recovered from lambs treated with each drug was performed by real time PCR. A longer persistence of moxidectin (P