Abstract
Malaria, as a major global health problem, continues to affect a large number of people each year, especially those in developing countries. Effective drug discovery is still one of the main efforts to control malaria. As natural products are still considered as a key source for discovery and development of therapeutic agents, we have evaluated more than 2000 plant extracts against Plasmodium falciparum. As a result, we discovered dozens of plant leads that displayed antimalarial activity. Our phytochemical study of some of these plant extracts led to the identification of several potent antimalarial compounds. The prior comprehensive review article entitled “Antimalarial activity of plant metabolites” by Schwikkard and Van Heerden (2002) reported structures of plant-derived compounds with antiplasmodial activity and covered literature up to the year 2000. As a continuation of this effort, the present review covers the antimalarial compounds isolated from plants, including marine plants, reported in the literature from 2001 to the end of 2017. During the span of the last 17 years, 175 antiplasmodial compounds were discovered from plants. These active compounds are organized in our review article according to their plant families. In addition, we also include ethnobotanical information of the antimalarial plants discussed.
Highlights
Malaria is still considered as a major global health problem, affecting a large population of the world
It is imperative that the search for new antimalarial agents continues at an unabated pace in order to meet the challenges posed by the development of antimalarial drug resistance
Numerous antimalarial compounds have been isolated from plants, and many of these compounds exhibit significant activity against P. falciparum in vitro
Summary
Malaria is still considered as a major global health problem, affecting a large population of the world. P. falciparum is the deadliest strain that causes malaria and this form of parasite predominates in Africa [2,3]. The strains of P. falciparum that are sensitive and resistant to chloroquine are frequently used for antimalarial drug discovery programs. In our antimalarial drug discovery program, we have evaluated more than 2000 plant extracts against D6 and W2 strains of P. falciparum. Dozens of these plants displayed antimalarial activity. Several of these plant leads were investigated further to uncover their antimalarial constituents Phytochemical separation of these plant leads guided by bioassays led to the identification of ten new and 13 known active compounds [21]. – – – – 5.91 (D6) – – – % parasitaemia reduced from 19.4% (negative control) to 5.5% at 240 mg/kg (mice) 44.0 (W2); 39.0 (3D7) 32.8 (W2); 20.5 (3D7) 7.0 (W2); 25.5 (3D7) 7.0 (W2); 5.0 (3D7)
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