Melaku Meshesha

Resumen Context: The genus Kniphofia Moench, with species close to 70, is traditionally used to treat wide ranges of ailments including menstrual pains, infertility, abdominal cramps, wounds, malaria, chest complaint and hepatitis B. Kniphofia isoetifolia, an endemic species in Ethiopia, is known for wounds healing applications in Southern Ethiopia. Aims: To investigate the roots of Kniphofia isoetifolia and evaluate the extracts and its constituents for antibacterial activity. Methods: The roots of Kniphofia isoetifolia was extracted with chloroform/methanol (1:1 v/v), and the resulting crude extract was partitioned between EtOAc/H2O. The ethyl acetate extract afforded four compounds after chromatographic purification, and their identification was based on spectroscopic analyses. The extracts and pure compounds were evaluated for in vitro antibacterial activity on four bacterial strains namely Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterococcus faecalis...

In the search for bioactive metabolites from Ethiopian medicinal plants, two tetracyclic triterpenes; spinasterol (1) and shionone (2) along with cetyl alcohol (3) were isolated from the acetone extract of the stem bark of Vernonia biafrae, a medicinal plants widely used for the treatment of infectious diseases. Column chromatographic separations and Sephadex LH-20 gel filtration were employed for the isolation of the pure compounds. The compounds were characterized by spectrometric (NMR and mass) analyses and comparison with literature data. This is the first report of compound 2 and 3 from the genus Vernonia. The extracts and the isolated compounds were evaluated for their antimicrobial activities against both bacterial and fungal test strains and exhibited comparable activities with the standard antibiotics. The highest activity was observed for acetone extract (23.73 0.10 mm) and compound 2 (23.72 0.30 mm) against Staphylococcus aureus. Whereas, the rest showed moderate to low...