Medicinal & Aromatic Plants
Open Access

Bio-prospecting South African medicinal plants for antiprotozoal lead compounds

3^rd Global Summit on Herbals & Traditional Medicine

October 18-20, 2017 Osaka, Japan

Bapela Johanna

Thammasat University, Thailand

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Med Aromat Plants

Abstract :

Vector-borne infectious diseases remain the main public health problem affecting many people in tropical and subtropical regions. Chemotherapy is still one of the fundamental measures used in the control and treatment of protozoal diseases; however, the emergence of resistant strains is compromising its effectiveness. The main aim of this study was to bio-prospect South African indigenous plant species for novel antiprotozoal plant products. Twenty (20) plant species were collected, extracted in dichloromethane: 50% methanol (1:1) and then separated into polar and non-polar fractions. The acquired crude extracts were tested on Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense, T. cruzi, Leishmania donovani and Plasmodium falciparum. The current study is the first scientific account on the significant antileishmanial efficacy (IC50â�?¤5 �?µg/ml) of Bridelia mollis, Vangueria infausta subsp. infausta, Syzygium cordatum and Xylopia parviflora, as well as high antitrypanosomal activity of Albizia versicolor. 10 plant extracts exhibited significant in vitro antiplasmodial activity, with Tabernaemontana elegans and V. infausta subsp. infausta being the best samples. Application of supervised Orthogonal Projections to Latent Structuresâ�?�? Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA) on the 1H NMR profiles resulted in a discrimination pattern that could be correlated to the observed antimalarial bioactivity. Further phytochemical analyses let to the isolation of dregamine and tabernaemontana from T. elegans as well as friedelin and morindolide from V. infausta subsp. infausta. The study demonstrated the potential of discovering novel antiprotozoal scaffolds from medicinal plants.

Biography :

Bapela Johanna has her research area mainly focused on bio-prospecting indigenous plant species for antiprotozoal chemotherapeutic agents at University of Pretoria in South Africa.