Journal of Ethnopharmacology 76 (2001) 99 – 103 Short communication Antiplasmodial activities of some Ghanaian plants traditionally used for fever/malaria treatment and of some alkaloids isolated from Pleiocarpa mutica; in vivo antimalarial activity of pleiocarpine Jonathan Addae-Kyereme a,1 , Simon L. Croft b , Howard Kendrick b , Colin W. Wright a, * a The School of Pharmacy, Uniersity of Bradford, West Yorkshire BD71DP, UK b Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK Received 14 November 2000; received in revised form 20 January 2001; accepted 6 February 2001 Abstract Fourteen Ghanaian plants used in folk medicine to treat fever/malaria were screened for activity against Plasmodium falciparum (strain K1) and were tested for general toxicity to the brine shrimp. Extracts from three of the plants, Pleiocarpa mutica, Cleistopholis patens and Uaria chamae were found to have significant antiplasmodial activity. The extract of U. chamae was toxic to brine shrimps. These findings lend support to the use of these plants in traditional medicine. Possible toxicity due to U. chamae is a cause for concern. Five known alkaloids, pleiocarpine (1), kopsinine (2), pleiocarpamine (3), eburnamine (4) and pleiomutinine (5) were isolated from the roots of P. mutica. This is the first report of the occurrence of (4) in P. mutica. Compound (5) was the most active against P. falciparum (IC 50 =5  M). Although (1) was inactive against malaria parasites in vitro, it was moderately active against P. berghei in mice (25 mg kg -1 daily for 4 days reduced parasitaemia by 28.5% compared to untreated controls). © 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Alkaloids; Artemia salina ; Plasmodium falciparum; Pleiocarpa mutica ; Traditional medicine www.elsevier.com/locate/jethpharm 1. Introduction Ghana lies within the belt of Africa, where it is estimated that malaria is implicated in the deaths of between 1.4 and 2.6 million people annually (WHO, 1996). About a million of these deaths occur in children below the age of 5 years. Most malaria mortality here is caused by P. falciparum, the commonest species in the highly malaria endemic areas of Africa. The increased threat of malaria to life here due to the rapid spread of parasite resistance to the cheap and previously very effective antimalarial drug, chloroquine means there is an urgent need to find new antiplasmodial agents (Win- stanley, 2000). Many plant preparations are used in Ghana to treat fevers/malaria without any scientific evidence of effi- cacy. This work sought to establish a basis for the use of some of these plants and to evaluate the potential of constituents as possible new antimalarial agents or leads to new antimalarial compounds. 2. Materials and methods All chemicals were purchased from Sigma unless otherwise stated. * Corresponding author. Fax: +44-1274-235600. E-mail address: c.w.wright@bradford.ac.uk (C.W. Wright). 1 Present address. Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. 0378-8741/01/$ - see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0378-8741(01)00212-4