Antimalarial activities of medicinal plants traditionally used in the villages of Dharmapuri regions of South India

Twenty three traditional medicinal plants were collected from the Dharmapuri region, and evaluated for antimalarial potency against chloroquine (CQ)-sensitive 3D7 and CQ-resistant INDO strains of Plasmodium falciparum in red blood cell culture using the fluorescence-based SYBR Green I assay and cytotoxicity was determined against HeLa cells using MTT assay. Results demonstrated that ethyl acetate and methanol extracts of six plants possessed good antimalarial activity without any cytotoxicity and could play an important role in herbal formulations for the treatment of malaria.