Beninese Medicinal Plants as a Source of Antimycobacterial Agents: Bioguided Fractionation and in Vitro Activity of Alkaloids Isolated from Holarrhena floribunda Used in Traditional Treatment of Buruli Ulcer

Buruli ulcer (BU) imposes a serious economic burden on affected households and on health systems that are involved in diagnosing the disease and treating patients. Research is needed to find cost-effective therapies for this costly disease. Plants have always been an important source of new pharmacologically active molecules. Consequently we decided to undertake the study of plants used in traditional treatment of BU in Benin and investigate their antimycobacterial activity as well as their chemical composition. Extracts from forty-four (44) plant species were selected on account of reported traditional uses for the treatment of BU in Benin and were assayed for antimycobacterial activities. Crude hydroethanolic extract from aerial parts of Holarrhena floribunda (G. Don) T. Durand and Schinz was found to have significant antimycobacterial activity against M. ulcerans (MIC = 125 μg/mL). We describe here the identification of four steroidal alkaloids from Mycobacterium ulcerans growth-inhibiting fractions of the alkaloidal extract of the aerial parts of Holarrhena floribunda. Holadysamine was purified in sufficient amount to allow the determination of its MCI (=50 μg/mL). These results give some support to the use of this plant in traditional medicine.