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Abstract
BackgroundPsorospermun aurantiacum and Hypericum lanceolatum are plants locally used in Cameroon and other parts of Africa for the treatment of gastrointestinal and urinary tract infections, skin infections, venereal diseases, gastrointestinal disorder, infertility, epilepsy as well as microbial infections. The present study was designed in order to investigate the in vitro antimicrobial and radical scavenging activities of the extracts and isolated compounds from the leaves of these plants.MethodsThe plant extract was prepared by maceration in ethyl acetate and methanol and fractionated by column chromatography. The structures of isolated compounds were elucidated by spectroscopic analyses in conjunction with literature data. The broth microdilution method was used to evaluate the in vitro antimicrobial activity against bacteria, yeasts and dermatophytes. The antioxidant potentials of the extracts and their isolated compounds were evaluated using the DPPH radical scavenging method.ResultsFive known compounds: physcion (1), 1,8-dihydroxy-3-geranyloxy-6-methylanthraquinone (2), kenganthranol B (3), vismiaquinone (4), and octacosanol (5) were isolated from the leaves of P. aurantiacum while six compounds including friedelin (6), betulinic acid (7), 2,2’,5,6’-tetrahydroxybenzophenone (8), allanxanthone A (9), 1,3,6- trihydroxyxanthone (10) and isogarcinol (11) were isolated from H. lanceolatum. Compound 8 and 4 exhibited the highest antibacterial and antifungal activities with MIC ranges of 2–8 μg/ml and 4–32 μg/ml respectively. P. aurantiacum crude extract (Rsa50 = 6.359 ± 0.101) showed greater radical scavenging activity compared with H. lanceolatum extract (Rsa50 = 30.996 ± 0.879). Compound 11 showed the highest radical scavenging activity (RSa50 = 1.012 ± 0.247) among the isolated compounds, comparable to that of L-arscobic acid (RSa50 = 0.0809 ± 0.045).ConclusionsThe experimental findings show that the ethyl acetate and methanol extracts and isolated compounds from P. aurantiacum and H. lanceolatum stem bark possess significant antimicrobial and antioxidant activities justifying the use of these plants in traditional medicine, which may be developed as phytomedicines.
Highlights
Psorospermun aurantiacum and Hypericum lanceolatum are plants locally used in Cameroon and other parts of Africa for the treatment of gastrointestinal and urinary tract infections, skin infections, venereal diseases, gastrointestinal disorder, infertility, epilepsy as well as microbial infections
Resistance to most antibiotics occurs through the aegis of extremely efficient enzymes, efflux proteins and other transport systems that often are highly specialized towards specific antibiotic molecules [3]
Hypericum lanceolatum on the other hand, occurs on mountains in the Western Region of Cameroon, and is used for the treatment of skin infections, venereal diseases, gastrointestinal disorder, tumours, infertility and epilepsy [5,7]. Higher plants like those from the Guttiferae family are rich sources of antimicrobial phenolic secondary metabolites which are able to act as reducing agents, hydrogen donors, and singlet oxygen quenchers [8,9,10,11]
Summary
Plant material The leaves of Psorospermum aurantiacum and Hypericum lanceolatum were separately collected in May 2009 at Mount Bamboutos, West Region of Cameroon. Serial two-fold dilutions of the test samples were made and 100 μl of inoculum standardized at 106 CFU/ml for bacteria, 2.5 × 105 CFU/ml for yeasts (at 600 nm, Jenway 6105 UV/Vis spectrophotometer- 50 Hz/60 Hz) [19] and 1 × 105 spores/ml for dermatophytes (at 450 nm) were added into each well. This gave final concentration ranges of 1024 to 0.5 μg/ml for the extracts, 128 to 0.0625 μg/ml for isolated compounds and 12.50 to 0.006 μg/ml for reference substances. Differences between means of samples were compared using Duncan’s multiple range tests at P < 0.05
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