Plants have been used as a traditional medicine for the treatment of malaria. Plants may provide drugs directly such as quinine from cinchona bark or they may provide template molecules on which to base further new structures by organic synthesis—artemisinin from Artemisia annua. At the NIMR, efforts are being made to do primary screening of crude extracts of plant products to screen different ...

Terrestrial plants have been demonstrated to be sources of antimalarial compounds. In Cuba, little is known about antimalarial potentials of plant species used as medicinals. For that reason, we evaluated the antimalarial activity of 14 plant species used in Cuba as antimalarial, antipyretic and/or antiparasitic. Hydroalcoholic extracts were prepared and tested in vitro for the antimalarial act...

malaria is currently one of the most important causes of mortality in developing countries. high resistance to available antimalarial drugs has been reported frequently, thus it is crucial to focus on the discovery of new antimalarial drugs. artemisinin, an effective antimalarial medication, is isolated from various artemisia species. to identify the artemisia species producing high quantity of...

Natural product-derived drugs exemplified by quinine, isolated from South American Cinchona species and artemisinin discovered in China are of immense importance for the treatment of malaria. Although malaria parasites resistant to artemisinin have not yet been found in malaria patients, the need for new antimalarial agents remains. The burden of malaria is heaviest in Africa where over a milli...

BACKGROUND The search for new antimalarial drugs has become increasingly urgent due to plasmodial resistance to existing drugs. As part of this global effort, the present study aimed at evaluating the antimalarial activity of two traditionally used medicinal plants against the disease. METHODS Acute toxicity and four-day suppressive effects of aqueous, methanol and chloroform extracts of the ...

Malaria remains one of the most serious world health problem and the major cause of mortality and morbidity in the endemic regions. Brazil is among the 30 high-burden countries and most of the cases occur in the Legal Amazonian Region. New chemotherapeutical agents are needed for the treatment of malaria. Many plant species are used in traditional medicines of malarious countries and a relative...

BACKGROUND Plumbagin is the major active constituent in several plants including Plumbago indica Linn. (root). This compound has been shown to exhibit a wide spectrum of biological and pharmacological activities. The present study aimed to evaluate the in vitro and in vivo antimalarial activity of plumbagin including its acute and subacute toxicity in mice. METHODS In vitro antimalarial activ...

BACKGROUND Endophytic fungi, present mainly in the Ascomycota and Basidiomycota phyla, are associated with different plants and represent important producers of bioactive natural products. Brazil has a rich biodiversity of plant species, including those reported as being endemic. Among the endemic Brazilian plant species, Vellozia gigantea (Velloziaceae) is threatened by extinction and is a pro...