N.P. Makunga
Stellenbosch University
Network
Latest external collaboration on country level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots.
Publication
Featured researches published by N.P. Makunga.
Journal of Ethnopharmacology | 2008
G.P.P. Kamatou; N.P. Makunga; W.P.N. Ramogola; Alvaro Viljoen
The genus Salvia (sage) belongs to the Lamiaceae and encompasses 900 species worldwide of which ca. 26 indigenous species are found in southern Africa. Salvia is the largest genus in this family and constitutes almost one quarter of the Lamiaceae. In South Africa, the majority of Salvia species are distributed predominantly in the Cape region. Salvia species are used in many parts of the world to treat various conditions. Many sages, if not all, form an integral part of traditional healing in South Africa particularly in regions where they occur in abundance. Several species are used to treat microbial infections, cancer, malaria, inflammation, loss of memory and to disinfect homes after sickness. Despite the extensive traditional use and the general interest in phytoconstituents of Salvia it remains ironic that research on the South African counterparts has until recently been neglected. The review aims to collate recent research results on the phytochemistry and pharmacological properties of indigenous species. Bio-active compounds with antiplasmodial and antibacterial activities have been isolated and structurally elucidated from Salvia chamelaegnea, Salvia radula and Salvia verbenaca. The essential oil composition of Salvia showed the dominance of monoterpene hydrocarbons, oxygen-containing monoterpenes and oxygen- containing sesquiterpenes. Salvia runcinata is identified as an alternative source of natural alpha-bisabolol. Many pharmacological activities are summarised (anti-oxidant, antimicrobial, antiplasmodial, analgesic, antipyretic, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive) as a first attempt to provide scientific support for past and present local traditional uses.
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine | 2012
Olaniyi Amos Fawole; N.P. Makunga; Umezuruike Linus Opara
BackgroundThis study evaluated, using in vitro assays, the antibacterial, antioxidant, and tyrosinase-inhibition activities of methanolic extracts from peels of seven commercially grown pomegranate cultivars.MethodsAntibacterial activity was tested on Gram-positive (Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumonia) using a microdilution method. Several potential antioxidant activities, including radical-scavenging ability (RSA), ferrous ion chelating (FIC) and ferric ion reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), were evaluated. Tyrosinase enzyme inhibition was investigated against monophenolase (tyrosine) and diphenolase (DOPA), with arbutin and kojic acid as positive controls. Furthermore, phenolic contents including total flavonoid content (TFC), gallotannin content (GTC) and total anthocyanin content (TAC) were determined using colourimetric methods. HPLC-ESI/MSn analysis of phenolic composition of methanolic extracts was also performed.ResultsMethanolic peel extracts showed strong broad-spectrum activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, with the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) ranging from 0.2 to 0.78 mg/ml. At the highest concentration tested (1000 μg/ml), radical scavenging activities were significantly higher in Arakta (83.54%), Ganesh (83.56%), and Ruby (83.34%) cultivars (P< 0.05). Dose dependent FIC and FRAP activities were exhibited by all the peel extracts. All extracts also exhibited high inhibition (>50%) against monophenolase and diphenolase activities at the highest screening concentration. The most active peel extract was the Bhagwa cultivar against monophenolase and the Arakta cultivar against diphenolase with IC50 values of 3.66 μg/ml and 15.88 μg/ml, respectively. High amounts of phenolic compounds were found in peel extracts with the highest and lowest total phenolic contents of 295.5 (Ganesh) and 179.3 mg/g dry extract (Molla de Elche), respectively. Catechin, epicatechin, ellagic acid and gallic acid were found in all cultivars, of which ellagic acid was the most abundant comprising of more than 50% of total phenolic compounds detected in each cultivar.ConclusionsThe present study showed that the tested pomegranate peels exhibited strong antibacterial, antioxidant and tyrosinase-inhibition activities. These results suggest that pomegranate fruit peel could be exploited as a potential source of natural antimicrobial and antioxidant agents as well as tyrosinase inhibitors.
Journal of Ethnopharmacology | 2008
N.P. Makunga; L.E. Philander; M. Smith
Indigenous medical plants contribute significantly to a large South African population as part of a long-standing healthcare system intimately linked to folklore and for livelihood security. For the economically marginalized, access to such plants is largely through herbal markets which are part of an informal economy. Otherwise the formal natural products economy services those with a better socio-economic standing. Recently, the latter has experienced tremendous growth which largely mirrors the global cultural trend for organic naturopathies. Commercialisation of traditional plants and their contribution to the cosmeceutical, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries locally and abroad is reviewed. Traditional plant knowledge of southern African people is a source of inspiration for new product development. Concomitantly, an upsurge in research activities emanating from South Africa which confirms the pharmacological efficacy of these plants is fuelling a greater trust in indigenous flora. The escalating consumption of ethnomedicinals as highly valued commodities not only presents South Africa with socio-economic opportunities but also with challenges. Sustainable utilization benefiting the commodification of ethnoherbals, plus meeting aims of poverty alleviation and people empowerment, is a new paradigm in South Africa. The future sustainability of local ecosystems depends upon scientific conservation management practices that recognize the importance of involving local communities. Conservationists should remain aware and sensitive of socio-cultural dynamics within communities in order to manage natural resources.
Journal of Plant Physiology | 2010
Janine Colling; Marietjie Stander; N.P. Makunga
Environmental stresses can significantly alter the synthesis of both primary and secondary metabolites, resulting in medicinal plants with unpredictable biological activity. Here, in vitro shoot cultures of the medicinal plant Sutherlandia frutescens were used to study the impact of three abiotic stresses (nitrogen availability, drought and salinity), primarily on l-canavanine synthesis. This compound, a non-protein amino acid, is amongst those metabolites linked to the health benefits of Sutherlandia extracts. Nitrogen supplied to microplants positively correlated with canavanine levels, exhibited by a fourfold reduction when nitrates provided were halved. Although the biomass generated was lowered under these conditions, a higher capacity for rooting (52%) in comparison to the controls (37%) became evident. Only a small increase of the canavanine content in microplants growing on 100mM NaCl medium was detected, indicating that salinity stress was not a major limitation on cavanine production, but that it played more of a role in vitro on plantlet morphogenesis. Similarly, PEG as a supplement had little to no effect on canavanine synthesis. We conclude that a deeper understanding of the nutritional requirements for the agricultural crop management of S. frutescens, which serves the herbal products industry, is needed.
Metabolic Engineering | 2010
Janine Colling; J.-H. Groenewald; N.P. Makunga
The medicinal plant Pelargonium sidoides is fast becoming threatened due to the overharvest of its tubers from the wild to produce a phytopharmaceutical for treating respiratory infections. The action of the coumarins is implicated in the efficacy of the commercial herbal extract with the highly oxygenated coumarins exhibiting the best anti-bacterial and anti-viral activity. Through this work we aimed at exploring the metabolic effects of Agrobacterium rhizogenes transformation. After confirmation of transgenesis using PCR amplification of the rol A (320 bp), rol B (400 bp) and rol C (600 bp) genes, metabolite profiles indicated a high level of variability between the different transgenic clones but these had more compounds compared to non-transgenic control cultures. This was represented by a two- to four-fold increase in detected metabolites in transgenic clones. We quantified several commercially important coumarins, flavonoids and phenolic acids. One of the clones had six out of nine of these metabolites. Overall, the concentration of these metabolites of interest were significantly changed in transgenic root cultures, for instance shikimic acid was recorded at the highest level in clone A4T-A. Production of key metabolites at significantly higher concentrations due to transgenesis and positive anti-bacterial activity exhibited by transgenic roots lends support to the idea of developing these clones as an alternative source that will allow for sustainable access to economically valuable secondary compounds of P. sidoides.
Journal of Plant Growth Regulation | 2012
Hannibal T. Musarurwa; N.P. Makunga
The effects of nitrogen, potassium, water stress, and phytohormones were studied using a Salvia stenophylla (Burch. ex Benth.) microplant system. In vitro regeneration was monitored and then followed with volatile secondary metabolite profiling through headspace solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography. Plantlet growth was most prolific on half-strength Murashige and Skoog medium without phytohormones. An increase in macronutrients supplied to the microplants enhanced accumulation of the commercially important (−)-α-bisabolol, while no significant changes to the relative abundance of β-bisabolene, α-muurolene, α-patchoulene, and D-limonene (among others) became apparent. Water-stressed plants, treated with sorbitol and polyethylene glycol, had a lowered rooting capacity in vitro. Overall, as a plant production system, micropropagation did not have deleterious effects on the biochemistry of S. stenophylla as no significant differences in metabolic profiles existed between conventional garden plants and in vitro propagules, regardless of phytohormone treatment. We also show that nutrient manipulation can be used efficiently as a strategy for positively altering secondary metabolism. This will ultimately benefit the domestication of this commercially important medicinal herb.
Journal of Experimental Botany | 2015
Janine Colling; Takayuki Tohge; Rebecca De Clercq; Géraldine Brunoud; Teva Vernoux; Alisdair R. Fernie; N.P. Makunga; Alain Goossens; Laurens Pauwels
Highlight Overexpression of a new secreted cysteine-rich signalling peptide in Arabidopsis results in developmental defects, including lateral organ fusion. This finding suggests that organ boundary formation involves small peptide signalling.
Economic Botany | 2014
Lisa E. Aston Philander; N.P. Makunga; Karen J. Esler
The Informal Trade of Medicinal Plants by Rastafari Bush Doctors in the Western Cape of South AfricaThis research investigates the trade of medicinal plants by Rastafari bush doctors in the biologically diverse Western Cape region. Inventories of the plant collections of 52 bush doctors reveal 38.6 tons of 135 ethnospecies were traded with a market value of
Methods of Molecular Biology | 2013
Janine Colling; Jacob Pollier; N.P. Makunga; Alain Goossens
733,000 (ZAR 5 million) in 2010. Although a small part of the total trade of medicinal plants in South Africa, the characteristics of the Rastafari trade are unique in many respects. Men dominate this trade, there is homogeneity of plant species among vendors, and low species richness in comparison to the area’s high floral diversity indicates a cultural sharing of plants and medical knowledge. Diversity indices and species accumulation curves verified adequate sampling efforts and reveal that the range of medicinal species from the Western Cape may not have not been fully exploited, with up to 35 species involved in the trade yet to be “discovered.” The 27 ethnospecies in high demand that are targeted as conservation priorities include six plants new to the trade, ten unsustainably harvested species, six endemic fynbos plants, two plants with rare phylogenies, and three identified in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List Status. Bush doctors play a crucial role in transmitting herbal healing traditions and influence the future of this traditional plant knowledge and the sustainability of their diverse ecosystem. Western Cape medicinal plant trafficking by Rastafari should be monitored based upon the developing nature of this trade, the growing popularity of the group, and their willingness to engage in gardening, where community–based conservation strategies may be successful.Die Informele bedryf in medisinale plantesoos bedryf deur die Rastafariese bossiedokters in die Wes-Kaap, Suid Afrika Suid Afrikaanse WeskaapHierdie navorsing ondersoek die handel van medisinale plante deur die Rastafariese bossiedokters in die biologies diverse Wes-Kaap streek. ‘n Opname van die plant versamelings van 52 bossiedokters, dui daarop dat daar 38,6 ton van 135 ethnospesies met ‘n markwaarde van
Journal of Ethnopharmacology | 2013
Zonyane S; van Vuuren Sf; N.P. Makunga
733,000 (R5 miljoen) in 2010 verkoop is. Alhoewel die Rastafariese mark ‘n klein deel van die mark vir medisinale plante in Suid Afrika verteenwoordig, is die eienskappe daarvan in verskeie opsigte uniek. Mans domineer die mark. daar bestaan homogeniteit in die plantspesies tussen verkopers en lae spesiesrykheid in vergelyking met die area se hoë diversiteit. Die dui op ‘n kulturele uitruil van plant- en medisinale kennis. Die diversiteitsindekse en spesies-opeenhopingskurwes bevestig voldoende versamelingspogings en dui daarop dat die verskeidenheid van medisinale plante in die Wes-Kaap nie ten volle benut word nie, met tot 35 plante wat in die mark betrokke is wat nog ‘ontdek’ moet word. Die 27 ethnospesies wat in hoë aanvraag is en as bewaringsprioriteit geteiken word sluit plante in wat nuut tot die onderneming is: tien spesies wat onvolhoubaar geoes word, ses endemiese fynbos plante, twee plante wat phylogeneties skaars is en drie wat in die Internasionale Unie vir die Bewaring van die Natuur (IUCN) se Rooi Lys Status genoem word. Die handel van WesKaap se medisinale plante deur Rastafariers behoort gemonitor te word op grond van die ontwikkellende aard van die mark. Die toenemende gewildheid van die groep en hulle bereidwilligheid om by tuin bou betrokke te word in areas waar gemeenskapsgebaseerde bewarings tegnieke suksesvol kan wees.