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Session 3: Preclinical studies of herbal and traditional medicine

New Finding of An Anti-TB Compound in the Genus Marsypo-

petalum (Annonaceae) from a Traditional Herbal Remedy of Laos
*,# ** * *
Bethany G. Elkington , Kongmany Sydara , Andrew Newsome , Chang Hwa Hwang ,
* * #
Charlotte Simmler , David C. Lankin , Jose Napolitano*, Richard Ree ,
*,# * † **
James G. Graham , Charlotte Gyllenhaal , Somsanith Bouamanivong , Onevilay Souliya ,
* *,*** *,#
Guido F. Pauli , Scott G. Franzblau , Djaja Djendoel Soejarto
*Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, University of Illinois at Chicago, 833 South
Wood Street, Chicago, IL 60612 USA
**Institute of Traditional Medicine, Vientiane, Lao PDR
***Institute for Tuberculosis Research, University of Illinois at Chicago, 833 South Wood Street, Chi-
cago, IL 60612, USA
† National Herbarium of Laos, Vientiane, Lao PDR
#
Field Museum of Natural History, 1400 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, USA
Tuberculosis has existed in Southeast Asia for thousands of years. Many traditional
treatments involve herbal remedies. Over time, these traditional treatments have had the
chance to become refined based on efficacy and safety. It was therefore hypothesized that
plants that were used in the past and are still used today to treat symptoms associated with
tuberculosis are more likely to contain anti-tubercular compounds than plants that have not
been used continuously. To try to deduce which plants were used in Laos in the past, a
collection of palm leaf manuscripts was studied and a list of plants used to treat symptoms
associated with tuberculosis was compiled. Interviews were then conducted with contempo-
rary healers to see if the same plants are still being used today. Plants that were found in the
manuscripts and/or are presently used by healers were collected, extracted and were evalu-
ated in an anti-tubercular assay. This paper presents the methods used to identify and collect
plants used to treat symptoms indicative of tuberculosis, and the results of anti-TB assays to
test for activity.
Ethnopharmacological relevance: There is widespread use of traditional herbal remedies
in the Lao PDR (Laos). It is common practice to treat many diseases with local plants. This
research project documented and analysed some of these traditional remedies used to treat
symptoms of tuberculosis (TB).
Key words: antimycobacteria, botany, chromatography, cytotoxicity, phytochemistry,
Traditional medicine Asia & Oceania