Infections associated with multidrug resistant organisms result in increased morbidity and mortality in Lesotho and globally, thus, there is immediate need to discover new antibiotics against resistant bacteria through systematic examination of inexpensive local herbs. Here, we report for the first time, the welldefined and publicly available prototype library that consists of 20 different crude extracts derived from crude drug samples of medicinal plants of Lesotho used for treatment of infectious diseases. We also described the coupling of soxhlet extraction with liquid-liquid fractionation to give partially refined organic and aqueous extracts, and disclose that the extracts from the leaves and whole plant contained about twice as much organic soluble phytochemicals as aqueous soluble phytoconstituents. While the roots and bark contained about 2 and 5 times more of aqueous soluble than organic soluble phytochemicals respectively, especially when extracting with 90% ethanol. The library represents the potential phytochemicals in herbal prescriptions dispensed by traditional healers in Lesotho. The extracts are publicly available upon request through the corresponding author and efforts to expand the library are still continuing. This methodology could be followed to develop other libraries.
In this study, the antioxidant activity and phytochemical analysis of dichloromethane (DCM) and methanolic extracts of Pseudognaphalium undulatum (L.) Hillard & B.L Burtt were evaluated using 2,2diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) assay, ferric reducing power assay and standard analytical methods. Out of nine phytochemical classes determined, the DCM extract showed the presence of 33.3% of them while the methanolic extract showed the presence of 88.9%. The extracts showed significant antioxidant properties of which the methanolic extract showed the DPPH and H2O2 IC50 values of 706.38 and <50 µg/ml, respectively. Similarly, the methanolic extract showed the highest total phenolic and flavonoid contents of 213.03±0.82 mg GAE/g DW and 43.81±0.93 mg QE/g DW, respectively. The ferric reducing powers of both extracts showed a linear correlation with the ascorbate standard. Further studies such as bio-guided fractionation are required to explore in depth the pharmacological and ethnomedicinal properties of pure compounds from this plant.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.