Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Antifungal Activity of Hypericum havvae Against Some Medical Candida Yeast and Cryptococcus Species

Gorkem Dulger¹ , Basaran Dulger²

¹Department of Medical Biology, Faculty of Medicine; ²Department of Biology, Faculty of Science and Arts, Duzce University, 81620, Konuralp/Duzce, Turkey.

For correspondence:- Gorkem Dulger Email: gorkemdulger@yandex.com

Received: 5 April 2013 Accepted: 18 January 2014 Published: 24 March 2014

Citation: Dulger G, Dulger B. Antifungal Activity of Hypericum havvae Against Some Medical Candida Yeast and Cryptococcus Species. Trop J Pharm Res 2014; 13(3):405-408 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v13i3.14

© 2014 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the antifungal activities.of the individual as well as the combined hydroalcohol leaf and root extracts of endemic Hypericum havvae A. Guner (Hyperiaceae).

Methods: Each dry powdered plant material (20 g) was soaked in 150 ml of aqueous ethanol (50: 50 %v/v) until complete saturation of the plant material. After the extracts were filtered and evaporated, the antifungal activity of the extracts was tested against medical yeast, Candida (C. albicans ATCC 10231, C. tropicalis ATCC 13808, C. guilliermondii ATCC 6260) and Cryptococcus (C. neoformans ATCC 90112 and C. laurentii 34142) species by visual broth microdilution method. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the extract was derived from the results. Ketoconazole was used as the reference standard.

Results: MIC values ranged from 3.12 to 25.00 mg/ml. The extracts exhibited strong antifungal effect against the yeast cultures but the combination of the plant extracts (leaf + root) possessed stronger antifungal potency against Candida albicans and Cryptococcus laurentii, with the same MIC value of 1.56 mg/ml.

Conclusion: Our findings support the use of Hypericum havvae in traditional medicine for the treatment of fungal infections, especially Candidiasis.

Keywords: Antifungal activity, Candida, Hypericum havvae, Candidiasis