Which approach is more effective in the selection of plants with antimicrobial activity?

The development of the present study was based on selections using random, direct ethnopharmacological, and indirect ethnopharmacological approaches, aiming to evaluate which method is the best for bioprospecting new antimicrobial plant drugs. A crude extract of 53 species of herbaceous plants collected in the semiarid region of Northeast Brazil was tested against 11 microorganisms. Well-agar diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) techniques were used. Ten extracts from direct, six from random, and three from indirect ethnopharmacological selections exhibited activities that ranged from weak to very active against the organisms tested. The strain most susceptible to the evaluated extracts was Staphylococcus aureus. The MIC analysis revealed the best result for the direct ethnopharmacological approach, considering that some species yielded extracts classified as active or moderately active (MICs between 250 and 1000 µg/mL). Furthermore, one species from this approach inhibited the growth of the three Candida strains. Thus, it was concluded that the direct ethnopharmacological approach is the most effective when selecting species for bioprospecting new plant drugs with antimicrobial activities.