Antimicrobial activity of selected Peruvian medicinal plants

Rosario Rojas, Beatriz Bustamante, José Bauer, Irma Fernández, Joaquina Albán, Olga Lock

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

205 Scopus citations

Abstract

The antimicrobial activity of 36 ethanol extracts from 24 plants, all of them currently used in the Peruvian traditional medicine for the treatment of several infectious and inflammatory disorders, was tested by means of the agar-well diffusion assay against four bacteria (Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and four fungi (Candida albicans, Trichophyton mentagrophytes, Microsporum gypseum and Sporothrix schenckii). Twenty-five (69%) extracts showed some degree of antimicrobial activity against at least one microorganism. The plants with the greatest antimicrobial activity were Cestrum auriculatum L. Heritier (Solanaceae), Iryanthera lancifolia Ducke Suesseng (Myristicaceae), Lepechinia meyenii (Walp.) Epling (Lamiaceae) and Ophryosporus peruvianus (Gmelin) King & H. Rob. (Asteraceae).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)199-204
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of Ethnopharmacology
Volume88
Issue number2-3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Oct 2003

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Dirección Académica de Investigación of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (Grant DAI-010700000110). We would also like to thank the technical assistance of Carmen Castro and Victor H. Doroteo.

Keywords

  • Agar-well diffusion assay
  • Antimicrobial
  • Medicinal plants
  • Perū

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