Antifungal Screening of Surveyed Plants of Gwadabawa/Illela Communities of Sokoto State-Northwest Nigeria

Background: An earlier ethnobotanical study afforded fifteen surveyed plants, which are used as antifungal and wound healing remedies. This informed their antifungal screening to validate folklore claims. Materials and Methods: Identified, procured, and authenticated medicinal plants were each, defatted in hexane and extracted with methanol before partitioning with n-butanol to obtain an n-butanol extract with solubilized antifungal compounds in the organic phase. The resulting concentrated n-butanol extracts were then screened by subjecting each plant extract to in vitro antifungal assay for the determination of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the extract on Aspergillus niger in a 96-well flat bottom polystyrene microtiter plate using the broth microdilution method as outlined in the 2021 Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute guideline. Results: The antifungal screening of the plants presented active plant extracts with variable antifungal properties of MIC values ranging from 3.9 to 250 (mg/ml). Only the extract of Balanites aegyptica showed no activity at all concentrations tested. The lowest extreme was recorded for Ficus Platyphylla, which gave a slight activity at the highest MIC of 125mg/ml, while the highest activity was recorded for Faidherbia albida at the lowest test concentration with a MIC of 3.90625 mg/ml. The other thirteen extracts exhibited antifungal activity in varying degree with the following MICs: Stecullia setigera (7.8125 mg/ml), Annona senegalensis (7.8125 mg/ml), Uraria picta (7.8125 mg/ml) Combretum collinum (15.65 mg/ml), Afromosia lexiflora (15.65 mg/ml), Waltheria indica (15.65 mg/ml), Guiera senegalensis (15.65 mg/ml), Carica papaya (31.25 mg/ml), Rogeria adenophylla (31.25 mg/ml), Pennisetum hordeoides (31.25 mg/ml), Acacia nilotica (31.25 mg/ml) and Sida ovata (62.5 mg/ml). Conclusion: The in vitro antifungal potential of these surveyed plants supports their traditional use, hence, information (data) furnished by this study can be exploited for their further evaluations as antimicrobial drug leads of nature.