A notorious invasive weed's roots fight bacteria and fungus
Mohanty A, Das M, Gantayat PK.
Medicinal Plants
The scraggly Siam weed choking roadsides, pastures, and forest edges across the tropics carries root chemistry that kills disease-causing microbes in lab tests, turning a plant most people rip out on sight into a candidate for new medicine.
Chromolaena odorata, often called Siam weed, is one of the world's most aggressive invasive plants, forming thick tangled stands wherever it spreads. Researchers ground up its roots and found the extract could stop the growth of two bacteria and a yeast that cause human infections, and even slowed a cancer cell line in lab tests. A specific compound from the root, trans-Decalin, seemed to lock onto a protein the yeast needs to survive, which is a promising early sign but still far from a proven drug.
Key Findings
Root extract inhibited all three tested pathogens, with Candida albicans showing the largest zone of inhibition (5.5 ± 1.2 mm) and E. coli the smallest (3.5 ± 0.9 mm)
The compound trans-Decalin showed the strongest computational binding affinity (-5.9 kcal/mol) to Candidapepsin-2, a key C. albicans protein, and passed Lipinski's rule of five for oral drug safety
In an MTT assay, the root extract showed antiproliferative activity against human colon cancer cells (HCT-116) with an IC50 of 335.1 ± 0.13 μg/ml
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists tested root extract from Chromolaena odorata, a notoriously invasive weed, and found it kills E. coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans in lab dishes. A natural compound in the root, trans-Decalin, bound tightly to a key fungal protein and also slowed the growth of human colon cancer cells, suggesting the plant's traditional medicinal use may have real chemical backing.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Integrated in vitro and in silico antimicrobial assessment with cytotoxicity evaluation of the root of Chromolaena odorata (L.) from Rayagada district, Odisha.
The efficacy of C. odorata L. root as a potential antibacterial agent against three human-pathogenic microorganisms, including Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans, was as...
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