Antimalarial Activity of Plant Metabolites

Abstract

Malaria, as a major global health problem, continues to affect a large number of people each year, especially those in the developing countries. Effective drug discovery is still one of the main efforts to control malaria. As natural products are still considered as a key source for discovery and development of therapeutic agents, we have evaluated more than 2,000 plant extracts against Plasmodium falciparum. As a result, we discovered dozens of plant leads that displayed antimalarial activity. Our phytochemical study of some of these plant extracts led to identification of several potent antimalarial compounds. The prior comprehensive review article entitled "Antimalarial activity of plant metabolites" by Schwikkard and Van Heerden (2002) reported structures of plant-derived compounds with antiplasmodial activity and covered literature up to the year 2000. As a continuation of this effort, the present review covers the antimalarial compounds isolated from plants, including marine plants, reported in the literatures from 2001 to the end of 2017. During the span of the last 17 years, 175 antiplasmodial compounds were discovered from plants. These active compounds are organized in our review article according to their plant families. In addition, we also include ethnobotanical information of the antimalarial plants discussed.

In Vivo Antiplasmodial Activity of Different Solvent Extracts of Myrianthus libericus Stem Bark and Its Constituents in Plasmodium berghei-Infected Mice

“…Preliminary phytochemical screening of the stem bark of M. libericus revealed the presence of alkaloids, triterpenoids, phytosterols, saponins, tannins, coumarins, and flavonoids. Several studies on the antiplasmodial effect of medicinal plants have been linked to the presence of such plant's secondary metabolites [36][37][38][39]. Further phytochemical investigation on the stem bark resulted in the isolation and characterization of a known friedelane-triterpene, friedelan-3-one (ML1), and a phytosterol, stigmasterol (ML2).…”

Evaluation of Antimalarial Activity of Methanolic Root Extract of Myrica salicifolia A Rich (Myricaceae) Against Plasmodium berghei–Infected Mice

“…2,4 At present, more than 80% of the world's population relies on ethnopharmacologic healing modalities and plants for their primary health care and wellness. 5 Due to cultural acceptability, physical accessibility, and economic affordability as compared with modern medicine, traditional medicines are used widely in Ethiopia 6 and it is estimated that about 90% of the population is dependent on traditional medicine, essentially plants. 7 Natural products continue to make an immense contribution to malaria chemotherapy providing most of the antimalarial drugs in use.…”

Natural Phenolic Compounds and Derivatives as Potential Antimalarial Agents

“…To gather relevant information, reviews and single publications from that time period were searched on PubMed, Science Direct, SciFinder, and similar databases using relevant keywords, such as the classes of phenolic compounds and malaria and/or Plasmodium sp. [2,7,13,14,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. Compounds were selected according to their IC 50 (µM) in in vitro assays with P. falciparum different strains: chloroquine-sensitive (3D7, D6, F32, NF54, T9-96, D10), chloroquine-resistant (Dd2, FcB1, FcB2, W2, Fcm29, RKL 303, PFB, BHZ 26/86), multidrug-resistant (K1, NHP1337), and/or multidrug-sensitive (HB3, FCR-3).…”

“…mosquito. Of the 5 human infecting species, Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax represent the highest burden and the majority of cases [1][2][3][4]. P. falciparum remains the most prevalent and deadly, particularly in Africa, with increasing resistance to antimalarial therapy and reports of severe malaria cases, while P. vivax represents an additional problem of recurrence derived from its ability to remain in the hostʼs liver as an hypnozoite, a dormant parasitic form that can reactivate and cause the disease later on [1,5].…”