Insights into the anti-infective effects of Pluchea indica (L.) Less and its bioactive metabolites against various bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites.

Pluchea indica (L.) Less (family Asteraceae) is popularly consumed as a medicinal vegetable and used in ethnomedicine to treat various diseases including gastrointestinal problems such as dysentery and leucorrhoea, which are due to bacterial, fungal or parasitic infections. There have been numerous studies on the antimicrobial effects of the plant due to these ethnomedicine use. This review is comprehensively discussed the information on the anti-infective properties of P. indica and its secondary metabolites, and highlight the potential of the plant as a new source of anti-infective agents. Scientific databases such as Scopus, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, PubMed, Wiley Online Library, and ACS Publications were used to gather the relevant information on the ability of P. indica to fight infections, with the leaves and roots receiving most of the attention. Anti-bacterial, anti-mycobacterial, anti-malarial, and anti-viral activities have been the most exploited. Most studies were carried out on the crude extracts of the plant and in most studies the bioactive extracts were not standardized or chemically characterized. Several studies have reported the anti-infective activity of several bioactive components of P. indica including caffeoylquinic acids, terpenoid glycosides, thiophenes, and kaempferol. The strong anti-infective effect and underlying mechanisms of the compounds provide insights into the potential of P. indica as a source of new leads for the development of anti-infective agents for use in food and pharmaceutical industries.

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Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.