Table 3.
Plants used in Cameroon to treat some parasitic infections with evidence of their activities.
| Family | Speciesa | Traditional treatment | Plant part used | Bioactive (or potentially active) compoundsb | Screened activityc |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annonaceae | Polyalthia suaveolens Engl. & Diels (1227/SRFK) | Rheumatic pains (Surville, 1955) | Not specified | Polyveoline; 3-O-acetyl greenwayodendrin; polysin; greenwayodendrin-3-one (Ngantchou et al., 2010) | Antitrypanosomal activity: weak activity for polyveoline (IC50: 32 μM); 3-O-acetyl greenwayodendrin (IC50: 54 μM); mixture of polysin and greenwayodendrin-3-one (IC50: 18 μM) against T. brucei (Ngantchou et al., 2010) |
| Asteraceae | Vernonia guineensis Benth. (BUD 301) | Anthelmintic, anti-poison, malaria, jaundice (Iwu, 1993) | Leaves | Vernoguinosterol (21); vernoguinoside (22) (Tchinda et al., 2002) | Antitrypanosomal activity: significant for compounds 22 and 23 against four strains of bloodstream trypomastigotes T. b. rhodesiense with IC50 values in the range 3–5 mg/ml (Tchinda et al., 2002) |
| Guttiferae | Garcinia lucida Vesque (5768/HNC) | Gastric infections, anti-poison (Nyemba et al., 1990) | Bark | Dihydrochelerythrine (62); 6-acetonyldihydrochelerythrine (63); lucidamine A (Fotie et al., 2007) | Antileishmanial activity: Significant activity for compounds 62 and 63 and moderate for lucidamine A against L. donovani. Also, 100% Inhibition of promastigote at 100 μg/ml were reported for all the above compounds (Fotie et al., 2007) |
| Meliaceae | Turraeanthus africanus (Welw. ex C.D.C.) Pellegr (8233/HNC) | Asthma, stomachache, intestinal worms, and inflammatory diseases (Ekwalla and Tongo, 2003) | Aerial parts, roots | Turraeanthin C; sesamin (Vardamides et al., 2008) | Antitoxoplamal activity: Moderate activity for turraeanthin C and low activity for crude bark extract and sasamin. Inhibition of parasite growth at 10 μg/ml was found to be 55% for turraeanthin C, 20% for sesamin and 40% for crude extract (Vardamides et al., 2008) |
| Verbenaceae | Clerodendrum umbellatum Poir (7405/HNC) | Epilepsy, headache, intestinal helminthiasis, irregular menstruation, infective dermatitis, asthma, metaphysical powers, whitlow, vulvovaginitis (Adjanohoun et al., 1996; Jatsa et al., 2009) | Not specified | Not identified but, flavonoids, saponins, saponosides, tannins, and triterpenes were detected in the leaves aqueous extract (Jatsa et al., 2009) | Antischistosomal activity: 100 % reduction rate reported for mice infected with S. mansoni when treated with 160 mg/kg body weight of aqueous leaves extract (Jatsa et al., 2009) |
aHNC or SRFK: Cameroon National herbarium code; BUD, Herbarium of the Botany Department of the University of Dschang, Cameroon).
bCompounds characterized for the first time in Cameroonian medicinal plant are underlined.
cScreened activity: Leishmania donovani (L. donovani); Schistosoma mansoni (S. mansoni); Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii); Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense (T. b. rhodesiense); Trypanosoma brucei (T. brucei).