Author(s):

Moses S Owolabi, AA Omowonuola, Oladipupo A Lawal, Lajide Labunmi, Noura S Dosoky, Jasmine T Collins, Ifedayo Victor Ogungbe and William N Setzer

Abstract: Traditional herbal medicines play an important role in the health maintenance in developing countries, and higher plants continue to be promising sources of new medicines. In this work, we have extracted and screened six Nigerian medicinal plants for biological activity. Chloroform extracts from the aerial parts of Aristolochia ringens, the bark of Chrysophyllum albidum, the stems of Costus afer, the leaves of Opilia celtidifolia, the bark of Terminalia catappa, and the bark of Vitellaria paradoxa, were obtained and screened for phytochemical constituents, antibacterial, antifungal, and cytotoxic activities. Aristolochia ringens showed excellent antibacterial activity against Bacillus cereus and good antifungal activity against Candida albicans. A. ringens was also cytotoxic to Hep-G2 and MCF-7 cells. Chrysophyllum albidum showed antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli and cytotoxic activity to Hep-G2 cells. Costus afer showed good cytotoxic activity against Hep-G2 cells and antibacterial activity against B. cereus. Opilia celtidifolia extract was cytotoxic to Hep-G2 and antibacterial to E. coli. Neither T. catappa nor V. paradoxa extracts showed activity in the bioactivity screens in this study. The bioactivities shown in this study underscore the importance of traditional herbal medicines.

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