Cargando…

Cytotoxic potential of selected medicinal plants in northeast Brazil

BACKGROUND: Great biodiversity is a highlight of Brazilian flora. In contrast, the therapeutic potentialities of most species used in folk medicine remain unknown. Several of these species are commonly used to treat cancer. In this study, we investigated the cytotoxic activity of 18 plants from 16 f...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: da Silva, Thiago B. C., Costa, Cinara O. D’Sousa, Galvão, Alexandre F. C., Bomfim, Larissa M., Rodrigues, Ana Carolina B. da C., Mota, Mauricio C. S., Dantas, Alex A., dos Santos, Tiago R., Soares, Milena B. P., Bezerra, Daniel P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4938922/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27391476
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-016-1166-1
_version_ 1782441926142722048
author da Silva, Thiago B. C.
Costa, Cinara O. D’Sousa
Galvão, Alexandre F. C.
Bomfim, Larissa M.
Rodrigues, Ana Carolina B. da C.
Mota, Mauricio C. S.
Dantas, Alex A.
dos Santos, Tiago R.
Soares, Milena B. P.
Bezerra, Daniel P.
author_facet da Silva, Thiago B. C.
Costa, Cinara O. D’Sousa
Galvão, Alexandre F. C.
Bomfim, Larissa M.
Rodrigues, Ana Carolina B. da C.
Mota, Mauricio C. S.
Dantas, Alex A.
dos Santos, Tiago R.
Soares, Milena B. P.
Bezerra, Daniel P.
author_sort da Silva, Thiago B. C.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Great biodiversity is a highlight of Brazilian flora. In contrast, the therapeutic potentialities of most species used in folk medicine remain unknown. Several of these species are commonly used to treat cancer. In this study, we investigated the cytotoxic activity of 18 plants from 16 families that are found in the northeast region of Brazil. METHODS: The following species were studied: Byrsonima sericea DC. (Malpighiaceae), Cupania impressinervia Acev. Rodr. var. (revoluta) Radlk (Sapindaceae), Duranta repens Linn. (Verbenaceae), Helicostylis tomentosa (Poepp. & Endl) Rusby (Moraceae), Himatanthus bracteatus (A.DC.) Woodson (Apocynaceae), Ipomoea purga (Wender.) Hayne (Convolvulaceae), Ixora coccinea Linn. (Rubiaceae), Mabea piriri Aubl. (Euphorbiaceae), Miconia minutiflora (Melastomataceae), Momordica charantia L. (Cucurbitaceae), Ocotea glomerata (Nees) Mez (Lauraceae), Ocotea longifolia Kunth (Oreodaphne opifera Mart. Nees) (Lauraceae), Pavonia fruticosa (Mill.) Fawc. & Rendle (Malvaceae), Psychotria capitata Ruiz & Pav. (Rubiaceae), Schefflera morototoni (Aubl.) Maguire, Steyerm. & Frodin (Araliaceae), Solanum paludosum Moric. (Solanaceae), Xylopia frutescens Aubl. (Annonaceae) and Zanthoxylum rhoifolium Lam. (Rutaceae). Their dried leaves, stems, flowers or fruits were submitted to different solvent extractions, resulting in 55 extracts. After incubating for 72 h, the cytotoxicity of each extract was tested against tumor cell lines using the alamar blue assay. RESULTS: The B. sericea, D. repens, H. bracteatus, I. purga, I. coccinea, M. piriri, O. longifolia and P. capitata extracts demonstrated the most potent cytotoxic activity. The chloroform soluble fractions of D. repens flowers and the hexane extract of I. coccinea flowers led to the isolation of quercetin and a mixture of α- and β-amyrin, respectively, and quercetin showed moderate cytotoxic activity. CONCLUSION: The B. sericea, D. repens, H. bracteatus, I. purga, I. coccinea, M. piriri, O. longifolia and P. capitata plants were identified as having potent cytotoxic effects. Further investigations are required to determine the mechanisms of cytotoxicity exhibited and their in vivo activities. This work reinforces the need to understand the therapeutics potentialities of Brazilian medicinal plants.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4938922
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2016
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-49389222016-07-10 Cytotoxic potential of selected medicinal plants in northeast Brazil da Silva, Thiago B. C. Costa, Cinara O. D’Sousa Galvão, Alexandre F. C. Bomfim, Larissa M. Rodrigues, Ana Carolina B. da C. Mota, Mauricio C. S. Dantas, Alex A. dos Santos, Tiago R. Soares, Milena B. P. Bezerra, Daniel P. BMC Complement Altern Med Research Article BACKGROUND: Great biodiversity is a highlight of Brazilian flora. In contrast, the therapeutic potentialities of most species used in folk medicine remain unknown. Several of these species are commonly used to treat cancer. In this study, we investigated the cytotoxic activity of 18 plants from 16 families that are found in the northeast region of Brazil. METHODS: The following species were studied: Byrsonima sericea DC. (Malpighiaceae), Cupania impressinervia Acev. Rodr. var. (revoluta) Radlk (Sapindaceae), Duranta repens Linn. (Verbenaceae), Helicostylis tomentosa (Poepp. & Endl) Rusby (Moraceae), Himatanthus bracteatus (A.DC.) Woodson (Apocynaceae), Ipomoea purga (Wender.) Hayne (Convolvulaceae), Ixora coccinea Linn. (Rubiaceae), Mabea piriri Aubl. (Euphorbiaceae), Miconia minutiflora (Melastomataceae), Momordica charantia L. (Cucurbitaceae), Ocotea glomerata (Nees) Mez (Lauraceae), Ocotea longifolia Kunth (Oreodaphne opifera Mart. Nees) (Lauraceae), Pavonia fruticosa (Mill.) Fawc. & Rendle (Malvaceae), Psychotria capitata Ruiz & Pav. (Rubiaceae), Schefflera morototoni (Aubl.) Maguire, Steyerm. & Frodin (Araliaceae), Solanum paludosum Moric. (Solanaceae), Xylopia frutescens Aubl. (Annonaceae) and Zanthoxylum rhoifolium Lam. (Rutaceae). Their dried leaves, stems, flowers or fruits were submitted to different solvent extractions, resulting in 55 extracts. After incubating for 72 h, the cytotoxicity of each extract was tested against tumor cell lines using the alamar blue assay. RESULTS: The B. sericea, D. repens, H. bracteatus, I. purga, I. coccinea, M. piriri, O. longifolia and P. capitata extracts demonstrated the most potent cytotoxic activity. The chloroform soluble fractions of D. repens flowers and the hexane extract of I. coccinea flowers led to the isolation of quercetin and a mixture of α- and β-amyrin, respectively, and quercetin showed moderate cytotoxic activity. CONCLUSION: The B. sericea, D. repens, H. bracteatus, I. purga, I. coccinea, M. piriri, O. longifolia and P. capitata plants were identified as having potent cytotoxic effects. Further investigations are required to determine the mechanisms of cytotoxicity exhibited and their in vivo activities. This work reinforces the need to understand the therapeutics potentialities of Brazilian medicinal plants. BioMed Central 2016-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC4938922/ /pubmed/27391476 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-016-1166-1 Text en © The Author(s). 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
da Silva, Thiago B. C.
Costa, Cinara O. D’Sousa
Galvão, Alexandre F. C.
Bomfim, Larissa M.
Rodrigues, Ana Carolina B. da C.
Mota, Mauricio C. S.
Dantas, Alex A.
dos Santos, Tiago R.
Soares, Milena B. P.
Bezerra, Daniel P.
Cytotoxic potential of selected medicinal plants in northeast Brazil
title Cytotoxic potential of selected medicinal plants in northeast Brazil
title_full Cytotoxic potential of selected medicinal plants in northeast Brazil
title_fullStr Cytotoxic potential of selected medicinal plants in northeast Brazil
title_full_unstemmed Cytotoxic potential of selected medicinal plants in northeast Brazil
title_short Cytotoxic potential of selected medicinal plants in northeast Brazil
title_sort cytotoxic potential of selected medicinal plants in northeast brazil
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4938922/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27391476
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-016-1166-1
work_keys_str_mv AT dasilvathiagobc cytotoxicpotentialofselectedmedicinalplantsinnortheastbrazil
AT costacinaraodsousa cytotoxicpotentialofselectedmedicinalplantsinnortheastbrazil
AT galvaoalexandrefc cytotoxicpotentialofselectedmedicinalplantsinnortheastbrazil
AT bomfimlarissam cytotoxicpotentialofselectedmedicinalplantsinnortheastbrazil
AT rodriguesanacarolinabdac cytotoxicpotentialofselectedmedicinalplantsinnortheastbrazil
AT motamauriciocs cytotoxicpotentialofselectedmedicinalplantsinnortheastbrazil
AT dantasalexa cytotoxicpotentialofselectedmedicinalplantsinnortheastbrazil
AT dossantostiagor cytotoxicpotentialofselectedmedicinalplantsinnortheastbrazil
AT soaresmilenabp cytotoxicpotentialofselectedmedicinalplantsinnortheastbrazil
AT bezerradanielp cytotoxicpotentialofselectedmedicinalplantsinnortheastbrazil