Antimycobacterial and PknB Inhibitory Activities of Venezuelan Medicinal Plants

Abstract

Global control and elimination of tuberculosis are hindered by the high prevalence of drug-resistant strains, making the development of new drugs to fight tuberculosis a public health priority. In this study, we evaluated 118 extracts from 58 Venezuelan plant species for their ability to inhibit the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis mc26020, using the agar dilution method. Additionally, we determined the ability of these extracts to inhibit the activity of PknB protein, an essential M. tuberculosis serine/threonine kinase, using a high-throughput luminescent assay. Of the 118 extracts tested, 14 inhibited bacterial growth with a minimum inhibitory concentration ≤500 μg/ml, and 36 inhibited the kinase activity with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration <200 μg/ml. Five extracts inhibited M. tuberculosis growth and inhibited the activity of the kinase protein, suggesting that this could be the basis of their growth inhibition.

Emerging source of bioactive compounds from Arecaceae family: a systematic review

“…Tayler et al (2019) evaluated the antiparasitic effect from C. nucifera Against several parasites, like Leishmania donovani, Trypanosoma cruzi, and Plasmodium falciparum, which showed positive results. Aranaga et al (2020), evaluated the antimicrobial potential from several plant extracts, between then: Onecapaus bataua and Euterpe precatoria, which were able to inhibit the PKnB kinase enzyme, essential to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The IC50 from the first species was of 60.9 µg/mL, while the second one showed 77.4 µg/mL, both being able to inhibit the enzymatic activity, however, it was not able to inhibit bacteria growth.…”