Table 13.

Antileishmanial activity of various propolis and its chemical composition.

Propolis Origin	Parasitic Species	Identified Compounds	Activity	Ref.
Brazil (brown, green, and red propolis) and Portugal	L. braziliensis, L. infantum, and L. amazonensis	N.I.	All inhibited the growth of promastigotes of distinct parasitic strains and effectively reduced number of internalized amastigotes in infected murine macrophages (36–250 mg/mL)	[84,139,140,141]
Turkey (Three regions: Adana, Hatay, and Bursa)	L. tropica and L. infantum	Adana: cembrene; Hatay: chrysin; Bursa: cinnamyl cinnamate	All propolis (50–1000 μg/mL) showed good antileishmanial activity, but that of Bursa was the most effective	[142,143]
Cuba (20 different samples)	L. infantum	Amyrin, lupeol, and cycloartenol	All samples of propolis (3.2–22.2 μg/mL) presented antiprotozoal properties	[120]
Ecuador (three different samples)	L. amazonensis	Naringenin, sakuranetin, eupatolitin, and rhamnazin	All inhibited L. amazonensis growth, but the sample rich in flavonoids was the most effective (12.5–200 mg/mL)	[147]
Brazil (two different samples)	L. amazonensis, L. braziliensis, L. chagasi, and L. major	Minas Gerais: diethyl 2-methylsuccinate, cinnamic acid, pentanedioc acid, and hydrocinnamic acid; Ribeirao Petro: artepillin C, 4,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid, p-coumaric acid, and drupanin	Both showed great antileishmanial activity. Ribeirao Petro propolis exhibited a dose-dependent effect against promastigotes of L. amazonensis and controlled the parasite burden inside infected macrophages (2.8–229.3 μg/mL)	[148,149]
Brazil	L. braziliensis-infected mice	N.I.	Reduced growth by promoting morphologic alterations in promastigotes; in supernatants from liver cells and peritoneal exudate of mice pretreated with propolis and infected, increased TNF-α production was seen (5–100 μg/mL)	[150]
Brazil (green propolis)		N.I.	Decreases lesion development caused by L. braziliensis more than 75%, while the glucantime treatment showed a 57.7% decrease (10–250 μg/mL)	[151]