Screening for antifungal properties of Medicinal Wild Plants from Northern Italy

The risk of invasive fungal disease is increased in immune-compromised individuals, causing higher levels of mortality than tuberculosis or malaria. Antifungals frequently used in clinics to treat mycoses are essentially limited to the drug classes polyenes, echinocandins and azoles. The treatment with these established agents is often unsuccessful because of a series of limitations like nephrotoxicity, fungistatic mode of action and rapid development of drug resistance1. Hence, the need for new antifungals with fewer dose-limiting side effects, new mechanism of action and with a broad spectrum of antifungal activity is of prime importance. The plant kingdom has always represented a rich source of bioactive molecules. In recent years the research on natural products for the discovery of new drugs to be used directly or considered as a base for the development of better drugs is receiving a renovated interest2. In the present study we investigated the antifungal activity of ten medicinal wild plants of the Italian Trentino Alto-Adige region. Therefore, plant extracts have been tested against a broad panel of clinical isolates of human pathogenic fungi (Candida albicans, C. parapsilosis, C. glabrata, C. lusitaniae, C. tropicalis) using the broth micro-dilution assay. Extracts that yielded interesting antifungal activity (MIC50 >125 ug/ml) have been subjected to bioassay-guided fractionation. The data collected support the folkloric use of plants to treat diseases and skin infections.