Abstract
Natural products are sources of various biologically active chemicals. Therefore, ethnopharmacological and ethnobotanical studies are essential to discover new substances for the treatment of diseases. In this context, many studies have been conducted of the Asteraceae family demonstrating medicinal properties of its representatives, such as species of the genus Vernonia, which are rich in bioactive substances like sesquiterpene lactones, flavonoids, tannins and steroids. This review presents an overview of Vernonia species with antimicrobial potential, their main phytochemical characteristics and ethnomedicinal uses. Key words: Compositae, Vernonieae, phytochemistry, biological activity, antimicrobial, antibacterial, antifungal.
Highlights
Humans have always used plants for therapeutic purposes to control microbial infections and other medical conditions (Rangel et al, 2001)
This article presents a review of the antimicrobial potential, focusing on the antibacterial and antifungal activities of the species of the genus Vernonia, highlighting the biological, phytochemical and ethnopharmacological properties of the genus
In a study with 14 plants used in traditional Zulu medicine for treatment of ailments of an infectious nature, the methanolic and ethyl acetate extracts of V. colorata revealed antibacterial activity against grampositive bacterium S. epidermidis, S. aureus, M. luteus and B. subtilis and gram-negative E. coli and P. aeruginosa, by the disk diffusion and broth microdilution methods
Summary
Humans have always used plants for therapeutic purposes to control microbial infections and other medical conditions (Rangel et al, 2001). Numerous plants have been used for prophylactic purposes and to cure infections In this context, many studies have been conducted to find plant species with antimicrobial potential, such as assays of essential oils with antimicrobial properties against a variety of microorganisms (Silva et al, 2012). The Asteraceae family (Compositae) has about 24,000 described species, belonging to 1,600 to 1700 genera distributed in 17 tribes and three sub-families (Funk et al, 2009; Petacci et al, 2012). They have cosmopolitan distribution and are widely found in the tropics, subtropics and temperate regions (Teles and Bautista, 2006; Hattori and Nakajima, 2008). This article presents a review of the antimicrobial potential, focusing on the antibacterial and antifungal activities of the species of the genus Vernonia, highlighting the biological, phytochemical and ethnopharmacological properties of the genus
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