Phenolic content of species from leguminosae family and their antifungal activity

The phytochemical of Leguminosae family is well documented. Various types of flavonoids, isoflavones, coumarins and phenylpropanoids have been described in this family, most of them proceeding as defense chemicals or signal compounds. Phenolic compounds, including flavonoids, were found in large quantities in plants of this family, and exhibit a wide range of pharmacological properties. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the presence of phenolic compounds in extracts of 60 plants of the Leguminosae family by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and evaluate the antifungal activity of 36 of them. Compounds that showed the highest frequency were flavonoids isovitexin (23%), vitexin (20%) and luteolin (16%). In the antifungal study, none of the 36 plants showed activity against yeasts. The species Eriosema heterophyllum, Chamaecrista nictitans and Mimosa pigra had a wider spectrum of action against the dermatophytes Trichophyton mentagrophytes, T. rubrum, Microsporum gypseum and Epidermophyton floccosum. The species M. pigra showed low values of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), around 1.9µg/mL. After fractionation it was found that the dichloromethane fraction is the most active. M. pigra could be a promising species for treatment of dermatomycoses.