1. Antimalarial activity of medicinal plants used in traditional medicine in S. Tomé and Príncipe islands.
- Author
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do Céu de Madureira M, Paula Martins A, Gomes M, Paiva J, Proença da Cunha A, and do Rosário V
- Subjects
- Animals, Antimalarials therapeutic use, Antimalarials toxicity, Ethnobotany, Guinea-Bissau ethnology, Hepatocytes drug effects, Humans, Inhibitory Concentration 50, Malaria parasitology, Mice, Plant Extracts therapeutic use, Plant Extracts toxicity, Tumor Cells, Cultured, Antimalarials pharmacology, Drug Evaluation, Preclinical, Malaria drug therapy, Medicine, Traditional, Phytotherapy, Plant Extracts pharmacology, Plants, Medicinal, Plasmodium drug effects
- Abstract
The present study investigates the antimalarial activity of 13 medicinal plants used in traditional medicine in S. Tomé and Príncipe (STP) islands in the Gulf of Guinea, aiming at identifying the most effective plants for further research. Fieldwork was carried out with the collaboration of 37 traditional healers from both islands, during an ethnobotanical study, which was conducted from 1993 to 1999. Our results indicate that the traditional healers in STP use several medicinal plants against fever and/or 'malaria' which reveal strong antiparasitic activity in vitro: four of the plant extracts have evident antiplasmodial activity against chloroquine resistant Plasmodium falciparum, with IC(50) values <10 microg/ml, and also revealed hepatic schizontocidal activity (<5-35 microg/ml). In vivo, the extracts caused partial reduction of Plasmodium berghei parasitaemia in mice.
- Published
- 2002
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