Abstract
Purpose: To evaluate the antifungal and cytotoxic activities of four medicinal plants from Tanzania, namely, Mystroxylon aethiopicum, Lonchocarpus capassa, Albizia anthelmentica and Myrica salicifolia.Methods: The plant materials were subjected to extraction using dichloromethane, ethyl acetate and distilled water. The minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) of the extracts against Candida albicans and Cryptococcus neoformans was determined by microdilution method. The lowest concentration which showed no fungal growth was considered as MIC. The cytotoxic effect of the extracts was determined using brine shrimp toxicity assay.Results: Lonchocarpus capassa leaf extracts exhibited antifungal activity against test fungal strains with MIC range of 0.78 – 3.13 mg/mL with Lonchocarpus capassa aqueous leaf extract (LCAL) inhibiting C. albicans and C. neoformans at MIC value of 0.78 mg/mL. Cytotoxicity assay revealed that LCAL extract which displayed good antifungal activity, was cytotoxic against brine shrimp larvae with halfmaximal lethal concentration (LC,sub>50) value of 17.86 μg/mL. Interestingly, 33 % of plant extracts exhibited high cytotoxicity with LC50 values below that of the standard anticancer drug, cyclophosphamide (16.57 μg/mL).Conclusion: The results obtained suggest that LCAL needs to be further investigated for its phytochemical composition to unravel its antifungal secondary metabolites. Furthermore, some of the plant extracts are potential anticancer agents.Keywords: Antifungal, Cytotoxicity, Brine shrimp, Mystroxylon aethiopicum, Lonchocarpus capassa, Albizia anthelmentica, Myrica salicifolia
Highlights
The importance of medicinal plants in solving the healthcare problems of the world is gaining attention [1]
The findings presented as minimum inhibition concentrations (MIC) indicated that plant extracts possessed varying antifungal potencies as summarized in Table 1 and 2
Albizia anthelmentica dichloromethane leaf (AADL) and ethyl acetate (AAEL) extracts exhibited moderate antifungal activities with MIC value of 3.13 mg/mL against C. albicans whereas the aqueous leaf (AAAL) extract had the same MIC value of 3.13 mg/mL against C. neoformans (Table 2)
Summary
The importance of medicinal plants in solving the healthcare problems of the world is gaining attention [1]. The plates were first preloaded with 50 μL of Saboraud’s dextrose broth media in each well followed by addition of 50 μL of 100 mg/mL extract (prepared in DMSO) into the first wells of each row so as to make a total volume of 100 μL in each of the first row wells. Different levels of concentrations (240, 120, 80, 40, 24 and 8 μg/mL) were prepared by drawing different volumes from the stock solutions and added in a 10 mL universal bottle containing 10 brine shrimps larvae. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out using Statistica software version 8 to determine the effect of plant extract concentration on brine shrimp mortality. Confirmation of statistical difference was by Fisher’s LSD test with the level of significance set at p < 0.05
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