Antifungal activity of Rapahnus sativus ethanolic extract against Candida albicans

SOBERÓN, J.R.; PASTORIZA, A.C.; SGARIGLIA, M.A.; SGROI, N.A.; SAMPIETRO D.A.; VATTUONE, M.A.

Yerba Buena, Tucumán, Argentina

Congreso; XXX ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC MEETING - TUCUMAN BIOLOGY ASSOCIATION; 2013

TUCUMAN BIOLOGY ASSOCIATION

Fungal infections by opportunistic yeasts such as Candida spp. in immunocompromised patients have increased during the last decade. Available antifungal drugs possess high toxicity, fungistatic action or high costs. Raphanus sativus L ethanolic extract (RSE) has been described to possess antifungal activities against phytopathogenic fungi, which led us to investigate if this extract could exert antifungal activity against human opportunistic pathogenic yeasts such as Candida albicans. RSE was assayed alone, between 62.5-500 µg of extracted material (EM).well-1 and combined with fluconazole (FLU) (1 µg.plate-1) to assess its anti-yeast activity against C. albicans (ATCC 10231) by agar well diffusion assays. The results showed that RSE exerted inhibitory effects on C. albicans growth, even in the absence of FLU, at quantities ranging from 500-125 µg EM, which led us to conclude that RSE contains anti-yeast compounds. These findings provide the basis to continue the study of RSE as a source of natural antifungal agents in order to identify and elucidate the chemical structure of the responsible compounds.