ANTIBACTERIAL PROPERTY TESTING OF TWO SPECIES OF TROPICAL PLANT LASIANTHUS (RUBIACEAE).

Two tropical plant species, Lasianthus pilosus and Lasianthus stipularis are used in traditional medicine but there have been no published studies of the extracts of these plants against bacteria. In this study, we aimed to determine the antimicrobial activities of the above two plants against two gram-positive and seven gram-negative bacterial strains to determine the potential of these two plant species for possible antimicrobial drug development. The antibacterial activities of the lipophilic extracts of these plants were evaluated by disk diffusion and broth microdilution methods.

Correlation of camptothecin-producing ability and phylogenetic relationship in the genus Ophiorrhiza.

Camptothecin (CPT) is an essential precursor of semisynthetic chemotherapeutic agents for cancers throughout the world. In spite of the rapid growth of market demand, CPT raw material is still harvested by extraction from Camptotheca acuminata and Nothapodytes foetida because its total synthesis is not cost-effective. In this study, we examined eight species of the genus Ophiorrhiza (Rubiaceae) from Thailand as novel alternative sources of CPT.