Evaluation of Antigonorrhea Activity and Cytotoxicity of Helichrysum caespititium (DC) Harv. Whole Plant Extracts

Abstract

Over 80% of African population depends on traditional knowledge for their well-being, and especially on plants as medicines. Although Helichrysum caespititium is among plants that are commonly used by traditional healers in Africa, its biological activities are still not scientifi cally proven and reported. The primary objective of this study is to assess the antigonorrhea activity and cytotoxicity of H. caespititium whole plant. The plant material was subjected to a serial exhaustive extraction to obtain different solvent extracts using n-hexane, dichloromethane, methanol, and water. The antigonorrhea activity of the four plant extracts (n-hexane, dichloromethane, methanol, and water extracts) against 2008 WHO Neisseria gonorrhea reference strains and the toxicity of the extracts against rat liver cells were investigated. All four H. caespititium extracts showed good activity against the four 2008 WHO N. gonorrhea strains (F, O, N, G strains) under study in the range of 0.037 to 0.33 mg/ml. n-Hexane extract was observed to be the most potent against all the four strains with a lowest Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) value of 0.037 i€¶ 0.0 mg/ml against G strain, which was comparable to gentamicin (standard 1) and more active compared to amoxicillin (standard 2), and also the most less toxic of all with LC50 value of 428.77 i€¶ 4.76 I¼g/ml followed by water extract (394.36 i€¶ 5.41 I¼g/ml) and methanol (357 i€¶ 2.81 I¼g/ml). The results justify the usage of H. caespititium in the traditional medicine against gonorrhea infections.