Four plants eaten by gorillas, also used in traditional medicine, provide clues for new drug discovery

Four plants eaten by wild gorillas in Gabon and used in traditional medicine by local communities have antibacterial and antioxidant properties, according to a new study by Léréché Evene Donailly Oyaba Indah of the Interdisciplinary Medical Research Center in Franceville, Gabon, and colleagues. The study was published September 11 in the open access journal Nature. From PLOS ONE.

Wild great apes often consume medicinal plants that can treat illnesses, and the same plants are often used in traditional medicine by local people.

To study the study, the researchers observed the behavior of western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in Gabon’s Moukalaba Doudou National Park and recorded the plants the gorillas ate, then interviewed 27 neighbors from the village of Dousara, including traditional healers and herbalists, about plants used in local traditional medicine.

The team identified four native plants that gorillas eat and that are also used in traditional medicine: the fromager tree (Ceiba pentandra), the giant yellow mulberry (Myrianthus arboreus), the African teak (Milicia excelsa) and the fig tree (Ficus). They tested bark samples from each plant for their antibacterial and antioxidant properties and investigated their chemical composition.

The researchers found that the bark of all four plants had antibacterial activity against at least one multidrug-resistant strain of E. coli. Fromager trees showed “remarkable activity” against all E. coli strains tested. All four plants contained compounds with medicinal properties, including phenols, alkaloids, flavonoids and proanthocyanidins. However, it is unclear whether gorillas eat these plants for medicinal purposes or for other reasons.

Biodiverse regions such as Central Africa harbor a large untapped resource of potentially medicinal plants. This study provides preliminary insight into plants with antibacterial and antimicrobial properties, and the four plants investigated in this study may be promising targets for further drug discovery research, especially for the treatment of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections.

The authors add that “alternative medicines and therapies offer real hope for solving many current and future public health problems, and animal pharmacology is one such new approach aimed at drug discovery.”