Freiburghaus F, Ogwal E N, Nkunya M H, Kaminsky R, Brun R
Swiss Tropical Institute, Basel, Switzerland.
Trop Med Int Health. 1996 Dec;1(6):765-71. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3156.1996.tb00108.x.
In Uganda, as in many other African countries, herbal treatment of various diseases is still common. In the present study, 9 plant species collected from Tanzania and Uganda and used by traditional healers in southern-eastern Uganda for the treatment of human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) were extracted and screened for their in vitro activity against Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense, one of the two causative agents of sleeping sickness. Eight lipophilic extracts of 5 plants revealed very promising antitrypanosomal activity with IC50 values below 1 microgram/ml; among them were extracts prepared from Albizia gummifera (2), Ehretia amoena (1), Entada abyssinica (2), Securinega virosa (1) and Vernonia subuligera (2). Activity with IC50 values between 1 and 10 micrograms/ml was determined for 15 further extracts. Cytotoxicity of active extracts, tested on a human fibroblast cell line (WI-38), was found to be high, and therefore selectivity indices resulted in less favourable ranges than those for the few commercially available drugs. Nevertheless, the results confirm the potential of ethnobotanically selected plants as remedies against sleeping sickness and call for phytochemical studies.
在乌干达，和许多其他非洲国家一样，使用草药治疗各种疾病的情况仍然很常见。在本研究中，从坦桑尼亚和乌干达采集的9种植物被乌干达东南部的传统治疗师用于治疗人类非洲锥虫病（昏睡病），对其进行了提取，并筛选了它们对布氏罗得西亚锥虫的体外活性，布氏罗得西亚锥虫是昏睡病的两种病原体之一。5种植物的8种亲脂性提取物显示出非常有前景的抗锥虫活性，IC50值低于1微克/毫升；其中包括从阿拉伯胶合欢（2种）、埃氏厚壳树（1种）、非洲榼藤（2种）、一叶萩（1种）和亚灌木斑鸠菊（2种）制备的提取物。另外15种提取物的IC5活性在1至10微克/毫升之间。在人成纤维细胞系（WI-38）上测试活性提取物的细胞毒性，发现其毒性很高，因此选择性指数的范围比少数几种市售药物的选择性指数范围更不理想。尽管如此，研究结果证实了从民族植物学角度挑选的植物作为治疗昏睡病药物的潜力，并呼吁开展植物化学研究。
