Joël Dade, Landry Kablan, Barthélemy Attioua, Christian Bories, Souhalio El Hadji Bamba, Merlin Mensah and Gustav Komlaga
Leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis are protozoan diseases caused respectively by the kinetoplastid protozoan Leishmania parasites transmitted by the female phlebotomine sandflies and Trypanosoma parasites transmitted by the tsetse fly. In the search for agents from tropical medicinal plants to treat these two neglected tropical diseases, serially extracted petroleum ether, dichloromethane and methanol extracts of the leaves of Monodora crispata and Monodora brevipes, and eleven aporphines alkaloids isolated from the dried powdered leaves of the two plants were evaluated against Leishmania donovani promastigotes and Trypanosoma brucei brucei trypomastigotes. The extracts of both plants and the isolated compounds displayed varied levels of antiprotozoal activities. The oxoaporphine compounds, (+)-anolobine (7) and (+)-listeferine (8), exerted the most significant activity against L. donovani (IC50: 14.59 μM) and T. brucei brucei (LC100: 50.02 μM) respectively. This is the first report on the antiprotozoal activity of the isolated compounds. The results offer potential for further studies of the oxoaporphines for enhanced antiprotozoal activity.
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