Abstract
Purpose: To review the phytochemical, ethnopharmacology and traditional uses of the Kirkia species throughout their distributional range. Methods: The information documented in this article is from scientific journals, books, theses and reports obtained from library collections and electronic search engines such as Google, Google scholar, publishing sites such as Elsevier, ScienceDirect, BioMed Central (BMC), PubMed and other scientific database sites such as ChemSpider and PubChem. Results: Kirkia species are used as herbal remedies for abdominal pain, cholera, cough, snake bites and toothache in East, Central and Southern Africa. There are similarities in the use of Kirkia species as herbal medicines in Central and Southern Africa in terms of plant parts used, herbal preparation, route of administration and dosage. The chemical composition of Kirkia species is dominated by fatty acids, flavonols, isocoumarin, lignans, neolignans, nor-carotenoids, phenols and tannins isolated from leaves, stem bark and roots. Major biological activities demonstrated by Kirkia species include antimicrobial, antioxidant, antiplasmodial and antiplatelet activities. Conclusion: Kirkia species are valuable herbal medicines with multiple pharmacological effects. Kirkia extracts and their isolates are potential sources of modern medicines following future detailed studies to elucidate their mechanisms of action, toxicity and clinical trials. Keywords: Africa, Ethnobotanical, Isocoumarin, Kirkia species, Lignans, Livelihood needs, Neolignans, Traditional medicine
Highlights
The monotypic genus Kirkia Oliver is a member of the dicotyledonous family Kirkiaceae Takhtajan which contains six species [1,2]
Genus Kirkia is distributed in tropical Africa from Ethiopia and Somalia, south to Madagascar, South Africa and Namibia [4,5]
Kirkia burgeri Stannard is a shrub or small tree divided into two sub-species, K. burgeri subsp. burgeri growing mainly on limestone slopes in Ethiopia
Summary
The monotypic genus Kirkia Oliver is a member of the dicotyledonous family Kirkiaceae Takhtajan which contains six species [1,2]. Such diseases or ailments include symptoms such as cholera [22,24,34], diarrhoea [22,24], dysentery [22,24], fever and malaria [33,36,39], toothache [4,7,20] and wounds [21,23,24] Such wide use of Kirkia species against microbial infections in traditional medicine prompted Masoko [54] to evaluate antibacterial effects of acetone, dichloromethane, hexane and methanol leaf extracts of K. acuminata against Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus with ampicillin as the positive control. There is no doubt that results presented in this review may provide useful clues to promote further investigations of ethnopharmacological properties as well as potential use of phytochemicals isolated from Kirkia species
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