Mimosa Sillanpää

PhD thesis topic

Interactions between Plant Tannins and Commercial Anthelmintics: Molecular Aspects and Mechanisms of Interaction

Main aims

(1) Investigating if there exists direct interaction between plant tannins and commercial anthelmintics.

(2) Evaluating the mechanisms of these interactions and assessing how different structural characteristics of tannins influence them.

(3) Determining whether these molecular-level interactions can be translated into in vitro or in vivo settings to enhance the effectiveness of anthelmintics.

Motivation

The issue of anthelmintic resistance continues to grow, warranting the development of novel and more sustainable helminth-control strategies. Tannins have demonstrated anthelmintic activity, along with their other positive effects on ruminant production, and could be a new and sustainable tool to battle this global problem. As a result of this, there is a growing interest in studying the combined effects of tannins and the more traditional anthelmintic treatments. The outcomes of such research have been fascinating, as both synergistic and antagonistic effects have been observed depending on the specific combination of tannin and anthelmintic. However, it remains unclear whether these effects are due to direct or indirect modes of action and what kind of a role different structural features of tannins play in this equation. This research builds upon the previously mentioned research and the knowledge gained from my work will be a step towards either partially replacing commercial anthelmintics with tannin-rich plants or using them in a complementary and economically viable manner.

To me, this whole research area is very interesting, and deepening my knowledge on chemistry and natural products and combining them with a more medicinal point of view is something that I have always wanted to do and I cannot wait to delve deeper and learn more. Moreover, I think the impact of science should be accessible and meaningful to individuals beyond the scientific community, and the scientific impact of this work extends to the agricultural and veterinary domains, fulfilling that goal.

Results so far

So far, I have developed a method to analyse the possible direct interactions between tannins and a commercial anthelmintic. The results show that tannins do, in fact, interact directly with the anthelmintic (t.b.a, manuscript submitted). I hope that during my PhD work, I will be able to characterize the interaction methods concerning these interactions and to find out if these interactions affect the bioavailability and efficacy of the used anthelmintic.