NDLI: The biological activity and chemistry of the southern African Combretaceae.

Content Provider	World Health Organization (WHO)-Global Index Medicus
Author	Eloff, J. N. Katerere, D. R. McGaw, L. J.
Spatial Coverage	South Africa
Description	Country affiliation: South Africa Author Affiliation: Eloff JN ( Phytomedicine Programme, Department of Paraclinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X04, Onderstepoort 0110, South Africa. kobus.eloff@up.ac.za)
Abstract	AIM OF THE STUDY: Members of the Combretaceae family are widely traded in the traditional medicine market in southern Africa. The family is also used for medicinal purposes in the rest of Africa and Asia for close to 90 medicinal indications. Many of these indications are related to treating infections. This contribution summarizes work done to date and identifies avenues for future research. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Substantial work has already been done on the chemistry of especially Combretum and Terminalia species over many years. During the last decade we have focussed on bio-assay guided isolation of biologically active compounds with the aim of producing new effective antimicrobial products. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Methods developed to facilitate this process and data on 25 compounds isolated from 7 species are presented. The large majority of compounds isolated were known, but the biological activities were not known. In practically all cases the antibacterial or antifungal activity of compounds isolated were much lower than expected from the activity of the crude extracts. It appears that synergism plays a role in antimicrobial activity of plant extracts and that the hope of isolating a single compound that can be used as a new agent to address antibiotic resistance has been frustrated. By simple manipulation such as selective extraction the activity of some crude extracts could however, be increased substantially and this offers a new approach to address antibiotic resistance via the herbal medicine industry. Practically all extracts obtained using intermediate polarity extractants had reasonable to very good activity with MICs as low as 40 microg/ml, validating the traditional use for infectious diseases. Aqueous extracts however, generally had hardly any activity. CONCLUSIONS: The Combretaceae contains a diversity of antimicrobial compounds. Because poor people usually have only water available as extractant, it raises the question how plants growing in poor rural communities can be used to treat infections more effectively, and what the mechanism of activity of aqueous extracts used to treat infections in traditional medicine are.
File Format	HTM / HTML
ISSN	03788741
Issue Number	3
Volume Number	119
e-ISSN	18727573
Journal	Journal of Ethnopharmacology
Language	English
Publisher	Elsevier
Publisher Date	2008-10-28
Publisher Place	Ireland
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Discipline Ethnopharmacology Combretaceae Chemistry Animals Anti-bacterial Agents Pharmacology Antifungal Agents Antioxidants Antiparasitic Agents Antiviral Agents Bacteria Drug Effects Anatomy & Histology Classification Toxicity Ethnobotany Humans Medicine, African Traditional Microbial Sensitivity Tests Plant Extracts South Africa Journal Article Research Support, Non-u.s. Gov't Review
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Drug Discovery Pharmacology

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