ANTIFUNGAL ACTIVITY OF BRAZILIAN AMAZON PLANTS EXTRACTS AGAINST SOME SPECIES OF CANDIDA SPP.

The increase in both opportunistic mycoses and antimicrobial resistance of pathogenic microorganisms has determined the need to develop new chemotherapies agents. Amazon Forest Plants has been used as natural drug by local people in the treatment of various tropical diseases. The objective of the study is to evaluate the antifungal activity of twenty-eight species of plants extracts belonging to twenty botanical families from the Amazon forest. The minimum inhibitory concentration of the one hundred fourteen crude extracts of dichloromethane, methanol and water were evaluated against three Candida species: Candida albicans, Candida glabrata and Candida parapsilosis. Seventy-four extracts showed activity, with minimum inhibitory concentration between 0.06 and 1mg/mL, against the three species evaluated. The results observed in this study, mainly about the families Arecaceae, Apocynaceae, Salicaceae and Urticaceae, showed that these extracts are promising for the development of new drugs that can be used in the treatment against opportunistic fungal infections.