The research was carried out to evaluate the inhibitory efficacy of acetone, ethanol,
and chloroform of Evernia prunastri lichen with concentrations of (25, 50, 75, 100) mg/ml.
against three pathogenic species of Aspergillus sp. Which are: A. flavu
s, A. fumigatus and
A. niger . The efficacy varied among the four extracts, where both the acetonic and
methanolic showed noticeable inhibitory efficacy against the fungal species under study.
The efficacy increased of both extracts, at concentration (100) mg/ml growth of A. flavus,
A. fumigatus and A. niger was completely inhibited, whereas the inhibiton percentage for
ethanol extract reached (87.05, 78.82, 94.11)%, respectively at the same concentration. As
for the chloroform extract, it was the least effective, where the percentage at (100) mg/ml
concentration reached (68.23, 74.11, 62.35) %, respectively, compared to the control.
Depending on these results, the extracts lichen of Evernia prunastri could be used
as natural products to treat fungal infections in the future.
Fungal infections caused by Aspergillus species generally are occupying a
second place among invasive fungal infections in the world, especially A.
fumigatus, which is considered the main cause of invasive Aspergillosis (IA).
Although IA rarely in
fects immunocompetent individuals, however, it can
lead to death in immunocompromised patients. Therefore, it is necessary to
diagnose the infection early in order to treat the disease efficiently.
However, the conventional diagnostic tools, currently used to detect
infections, has low sensitivity and reliability.
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology distribution as a molecular
and high sensitive technology has allowed us to make comparative study
between sensitivity of traditional currently used diagnostic method and
Nested-PCR, the result of the study of sputum samples that experimentally
infected with different concentrations of A.fumigatus spores ramping from 10
to106 spore/ml, have high sensitivity and specificity of Nested-PCR in
detecting the lower concentrations, comparing with traditional diagnostic
method (culture on Sabouraud media) that were negative in all
concentrations.
