ANTILEISHMANIAL PROPERTIES OF AMAZONIAN PLANT EXTRACTS

Ethnobotanical investigations of the medicinal practices of the Waorani Indians of the Amazon Rainforest of Eastern Ecuador conducted during the summer of 1993 with the assistance of a Waorani herbal healer resulted in the collection of 37 specimens of medicinal plants. The antileishmanial properties of aqueous extracts of 12 of the plant specimens have been assessed. Pentagonia spathicalyx, Piper augustum, Sphaeropteris sp., Bixa orellana, and extracts of the unidentified plant species known to the Waorani as "Cuyomincalye" and "Biyaye" are active inhibitors of the in vitro growth of Leishmania sp. However, these extracts also exhibited equal or higher toxicity towards mammalian representative HeLa and CEM-T4 cells. Further fractionation of the plant extracts and identification of the active inhibitory compounds must be performed to assess their chemotherapeutic potential.