Bapela Johanna
University of Pretoria, South Africa
Title: Bioprospecting South African medicinal plants for antiprotozoal lead compounds
Biography
Biography: Bapela Johanna
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 bioprospect South African indigenous plant species for novel antiprotozoal plant products. Twenty 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 (IC50 ≤ 5 µg/ml) of Bridelia mollis, Vangueria infausta subsp. infausta, Syzygium cordatum and Xylopia parviflora, as well as high antitrypanosomal activity of Albizia versicolor. Ten 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 Structures–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 tabernaemontanine 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
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