CONSTITUENTS OF Hololepis pedunculate LEAVES AND THEIR TRYPANOCIDAL ACTIVITY

摘要

Chagas' disease (caused by the protozoan haemoflagellate Trypanosoma cruzi) affects approximately 24 million people from Southern California to Argentina and Chile. Transmission by blood transfusion is an important source of infection in urban areas. Gentian violet is used to treat blood before transfusion, but is far from satisfactory for this purpose [1]. Searching for trypanocidal compounds to replace Gentian violet, an extensive in vitro screening of extracts of randomly collected species of Asteraceae family have been made [2]. Some results have already been published [3-5], and we reported here the phytochemical study of Hololepis pedunculata, one of these species that showed activity.