A new spectrum of human fungal infections is increasing due to increased cancer, AIDS, and immunocompromised patients. The increased use of antifungal agents also resulted in the development of resistance to the present drugs. It makes necessary to discover new classes of antifungal compounds to cure fungal infections. Plants are rich source of bioactive secondary metabolites of wide variety such as tannins, terpenoids, saponins, alkaloids, flavonoids, and other compounds, reported to have in vitro antifungal properties. Since the plant kingdom provides a useful source of lead compounds of novel structure, a wide-scale investigation of species from the tropics has been considered. Therefore, the research on natural products and compounds derived from natural products has accelerated in recent years due to their importance in drug discovery. A series of molecules with antifungal activity against different strains of fungus have been found in plants, which are of great importance to humans. These molecules may be used directly or considered as a precursor for developing better molecules. This review attempts to summarize the current status of important antifungal compounds from plants.

The antimicrobial potential of seventy-seven extracts from twenty-four plants was screened against eight bacteria and four pathogenic fungi, using microbroth dilution assay. Lowest concentration of the extract, which inhibits any visual microbial growth after treatment with p-iodonitrotetrazolium violet, was considered to be minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). Water extracts of Acacia nilotica, Justicia zelanica, Lantana camara and Saraca asoca exhibited good activity against all the bacteria tested and the MIC was recorded in range of 9.375-37.5 µg/ml and 75.0-300.0 µg/ml against the bacterial and fungal pathogens, respectively. The other extracts of Phyllanthus urinaria, Thevetia nerifolia, Jatropha gossypifolia Saraca asoca, Tamarindus indica, Aegle marmelos, Acacia nilotica, Chlorophytum borivilianum, Mangifera indica, Woodfordia fruticosa and Phyllanthus emblica showed antimicrobial activity in a range of 75-1200 µg/ml.

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BackgroundAyurveda, an ancient Indian medicinal system, has categorized human body constitutions in three broad constitutional types (prakritis) i.e. Vata, Pitta and Kapha.ObjectivesAnalysis of plasma metabolites and related pathways to classify Prakriti specific dominant marker metabolites and metabolic pathways.Materials and methods38 healthy male individuals were assessed for dominant Prakritis and their fasting blood samples were collected. The processed plasma samples were subjected to rapid resolution liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization–quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry (RRLC–ESI–QTOFMS). Mass profiles were aligned and subjected to multivariate analysis.ResultsPartial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) model showed 97.87% recognition capability. List of PLS-DA metabolites was subjected to permutative Benjamini–Hochberg false discovery rate (FDR) correction and final list of 76 metabolites with p < 0.05 and fold-change > 2.0 was identified. Pathway analysis using metascape and JEPETTO plugins in Cytoscape revealed that steroidal hormone biosynthesis, amino acid, and arachidonic acid metabolism are major pathways varying with different constitution. Biological Go processes analysis showed that aromatic amino acids, sphingolipids, and pyrimidine nucleotides metabolic processes were dominant in kapha type of body constitution. Fat soluble vitamins, cellular amino acid, and androgen biosynthesis process along with branched chain amino acid and glycerolipid catabolic processes were dominant in pitta type individuals. Vata Prakriti was found to have dominant catecholamine, arachidonic acid and hydrogen peroxide metabolomics processes.ConclusionThe neurotransmission and oxidative stress in vata, BCAA catabolic, androgen, xenobiotics metabolic processes in pitta, and aromatic amino acids, sphingolipid, and pyrimidine metabolic process in kapha Prakriti were the dominant marker pathways.