Ethnopharmacological versus random plant selection methods for the evaluation of the antimycobacterial activity

ABSTRACT

The municipality of Oriximiná, Brazil, has 33 quilombola communities in remote areas, endowed with wide experience in the use of medicinal plants. An ethnobotanical survey was carried out in five of these communities. A free-listing method directed for the survey of species locally indicated against Tuberculosis and lung problems was also applied. Data were analyzed by quantitative techniques saliency index and major use agreement. Thirty four informants related 254 ethnospecies. Among these, 43 were surveyed for possible antimycobacterial activity. As a result of those informations, ten species obtained from the ethnodirected approach (ETHNO) and eighteen species obtained from the random approach (RANDOM) were assayed against Mycobacterium tuberculosis by the microdilution method, using resazurin as an indicator of cell viability. The best results for antimycobacterial activity were obtained of some plants selected by the ethnopharmacological approach (50 percent ETHNO x 16,7 percent RANDOM). These results can be even more significant if we consider that the therapeutic success obtained among the quilombola practice is complex, being the use of some plants acting as fortifying agents, depurative, vomitory, purgative and bitter remedy, especially to infectious diseases, of great importance to the communities in the curing or recovering of health as a whole.