Bioactive natural products derived from the East African flora

Abstract

The East African region is highly endowed with plant biodiversity, and it is estimated that there are over 21 000 higher plant species in the region. This provides ethnopharmacologists with a wide range of plant species for phytochemical and pharmacological studies. In addition, the region is home to one of the ecological hotspots of plant species, the Eastern Arc Mountains, along the eastern coast of Tanzania. Much of the ethnopharmacological work conducted using plant samples from East Africa has involved higher plants, most of which are endemic. As a result, novel natural products with intriguing chemical structures and pharmacological properties have been elucidated. This review presents the anticancer, antimalarial, antimicrobial, anti-HIV and antileishmanial natural products isolated from medicinal plants growing in East Africa (Table 1). It aims to coherently document the valuable but scattered reports on the ethnopharmacology of medicinal plants collected from three East African countries, namely Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda