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Brazilian flora extracts as source of novel antileishmanial and antifungal compounds

2008; Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Ministério da Saúde; Volume: 103; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1590/s0074-02762008000500006

1678-8060

André G. Tempone, Patrı́cia Sartorelli, Denise Teixeira, Frederico Oliveira Prado, Ivete ARL Calixto, Harri Lorenzi, Márcia de Souza Carvalho Melhem,

Phytochemical compounds biological activities

Natural products have long been providing important drug leads for infectious diseases. Leishmaniasis is a protozoan parasitic disease found mainly in developing countries, and it has toxic therapies with few alternatives. Fungal infections have been the main cause of death in immunocompromised patients and new drugs are urgently needed. In this work, a total of 16 plant species belonging to 11 families, selected on an ethnopharmacological basis, were analyzed in vitro against Leishmania (L.) chagasi, Leishmania (L.) amazonensis, Candida krusei, and C. parapsilosis. Of these plant species, seven showed antifungal activity against C. krusei, five showed antileishmanial activity against L. chagasi and four against L. amazonensis, among them species of genus Plectranthus. Our findings confirm the traditional therapeutic use of these plants in the treatment of infectious and inflammatory disorders and also offer insights into the isolation of active and novel drug prototypes, especially those used against neglected diseases as Leishmaniasis.