Elsevier

Journal of Ethnopharmacology

Volume 119, Issue 3, 28 October 2008, Pages 438-454
Journal of Ethnopharmacology

Review
Investigating South African plants as a source of new antimalarial drugs

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2008.07.003Get rights and content

Abstract

Based on the historical success of natural products as antimalarial drugs and the urgent need for new antimalarials, a number of South African medicinal plants have been evaluated for their antimalarial properties. This paper reviews the major studies conducted and their findings. Overall three ethnobotanical screening programmes have been conducted on South African plants while there have been a few studies adopting a more direct approach, where plants within a particular genus were screened for antiplasmodial activity. The paper also summarizes the bioactive molecules identified from selected plants having antiplasmodial activity. Overall the results of all studies conducted to date confirm the potential of South African medicinal plants in antimalarial drug discovery and identified a number of promising taxa and compounds for further investigation as plant-based antimalarial agents.

Section snippets

Malaria and the situation in South Africa

Malaria, caused by parasites of the genus Plasmodium, is one of the leading public health problems in Sub-Saharan Africa responsible for over a million deaths annually (WHO, 2005). This is due to the majority of infections in Africa being caused by Plasmodium falciparum, the most dangerous of the human malaria parasites as well as the most effective and difficult to control malaria vector, the mosquito Anopheles gambiae, which is the most widespread in Africa. Climatic conditions over a large

The role of ethnopharmacology in the fight against malaria

The main goal of ethnopharmacology is to discover novel plant-derived compounds, based on the indigenous use of medicinal plants, which can be developed into new pharmaceuticals. Historically, plants have proven to be a major source of drugs (Newman et al., 2003), with two of the most widely used antimalarials originating from plants—the quinoline-based antimalarials are modelled on quinine, derived from the bark of the Peruvian Cinchona L. tree; and the endoperoxide-based antimalarials

Methodology

In order to source information on studies, other than that of the authors, a Pubmed and Google Scholar search was conducted using key words (malaria, South Africa, antimalarial/antiplasmodial, medicinal plants, traditional medicine, plant extract). Articles and relevant references were selected based on ethnobotany, in vitro or in vivo antimalarial activity and toxicity of South African plants, focusing on endemic species and studies conducted by local researchers.

All publications cited use

Results and discussion

Overall three ethnobotanical screening programmes were conducted on South African plants (Prozesky et al., 2001, Nundkumar and Ojewale, 2002, Clarkson et al., 2004). There were four further studies where a more direct approach was adopted and plants within a particular genus were screened for antimalarial activity (Tetyana et al., 2002, Van Zyl and Viljoen, 2002, Kamatou et al., 2005, Kamatou et al., 2008). In addition some plants were evaluated in individual studies (Campbell et al., 1997,

Conclusions

Overall the results of the screening programmes supported a rational rather than random approach to the selection of antiplasmodial screening candidates and identified a number of promising taxa for further investigation as plant-based antimalarial agents.

The identification of compounds with antiplasmodial properties from South African medicinal plants implicated in the treatment of malaria suggests that they may play a role in the medicinal properties of the plant, but their potential for the

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