A screening for antimicrobial activities of Caribbean herbal remedies

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Jannette Gavillán-Suárez¹  Claribel Luciano-Montalvo²  Isabelle Boulogne³ 

[1] Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, University of Puerto Rico, Cayey, #205 Antonio R. Barceló Ave, 00736, Cayey, PR, Puerto Rico;Department of Chemistry, University of Puerto Rico, Cayey, #205 Antonio R. Barceló Ave, 00736, Cayey, PR, Puerto Rico;Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, University of Puerto Rico, Cayey, #205 Antonio R. Barceló Ave, 00736, Cayey, PR, Puerto Rico;San Juan Bautista Medical School, Department of Microbiology, 00727, Caguas, Puerto Rico;University of French Antilles and Guyana, UFR Faculty of Science, TRAMIL, F-97157, Pointe à Pitre, Guadeloupe Cedex, Guadeloupe;

关键词: Ethnopharmacology;    TRAMIL;    Antibacterial;    Syzygium jambos;    Pityrogramma calomelanos;    Tapeinochilus ananassae;    Gossypium barbadense;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-13-126

 received in 2012-09-21, accepted in 2013-05-31,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe TRAMIL program aims to understand, validate and expand health practices based on the use of medicinal plants in the Caribbean, which is a “biodiversity hotspot” due to high species endemism, intense development pressure and habitat loss. The antibacterial activity was examined for thirteen plant species from several genera that were identified as a result of TRAMIL ethnopharmacological surveys or were reported in ethnobotanical accounts from Puerto Rico. The aim of this study was to validate the traditional use of these plant species for the treatment of bacterial infections, such as conjunctivitis, fever, otitis media and furuncles.MethodsAn agar disc diffusion assay was used to examine five bacterial strains that are associated with the reported infections, including Staphylococcus saprophyticus (ATCC 15305), S. aureus (ATCC 6341), Escherichia coli (ATCC 4157), Haemophilus influenzae (ATCC 8142), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 7700) and Proteus vulgaris (ATCC 6896), as well as the fungus Candida albicans (ATCC 752). The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) values were determined for each of the extracts that showed inhibitory activity.ResultsThe decoctions of Pityrogramma calomelanos, Tapeinochilus ananassae, and Syzygium jambos, as well as the juice of Gossypium barbadense, showed > 20% growth inhibition against several bacteria relative to the positive control, which was the antibiotic Streptomycin. Extracts with the best antimicrobial activities were S. jambos that showed MIC = 31 μg/mL and MBC = 1.0 mg/mL against P. vulgaris and T. ananassae that showed MIC = 15 μg/mL against S. aureus.ConclusionThis report confirms the traditional use of P. calomelanos for the treatment of kidney infections that are associated with stones, as well as the antimicrobial and bactericidal effects of T. ananassae against P. vulgaris and S. saprophyticus and the effects of S. jambos against S. aureus and S. saprophyticus.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Luciano-Montalvo et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.