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Planta Med 2015; 81 - PW_17
DOI: 10.1055/s-0035-1565641
In vitro antileishmanial activity of
Brazilian plant species
RC Paula
1
, SM da Silva
1
, F Frezard
2
, KF Faria
1
, PRV Campana
3
, AF Silva
4
, L
Pieters
5
, CG Silva
6
, VL Almeida
3, 5
•
1
Laboratório de Bioensaios em Leishmania, ICBIM, Universidade Federal de
Uberlândia, Uberlândia, Brazil
•
2
Departamento de Fisiologia e Biofísica, ICB, Universidade Federal de Minas
Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
•
3
Serviço de Fitoquímica e Prospecção Farmacêutica, Fundação Ezequiel Dias,
Belo Horizonte, Brazil
•
4
Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
•
5
Natural Products & Food Research and Analysis (NatuRA), University of
Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
•
6
Serviço de Biotecnologia Vegetal, Fundação Ezequiel Dias, Belo Horizonte,
Brazil
•
Congress Abstract
Leishmaniasis is an infectious disease still widely spread in Brazil. It is a public health
problem for the country due to its magnitude and geographic expansion leading to a
complex, expensive and laborious control system [1, 2]. There is an urgent need to
search for new medicines to treat leishmaniasis. Natural products can provide unlimited
opportunities for the discovery of new lead compounds targeting this neglected disease.
In this work, we investigated the antileishmanial activity of 22 plant extracts, from
seven different species belonging to Apocynaceae, Asteraceae, Ebenaceae, Primulaceae
and Rutaceae families. Samples were evaluated against promastigotes from L. infantum
(strain BH46). The antileishmanial activity was measured 24h after exposition to the
sample using the resazurin-based viability assay [3]. The toxicity of test samples is
currently being investigated using dye exclusion method for cell viability using non-
infected macrophages. According to preliminary results, four extracts from
Aspidosperma spp. showed antileishmanial activity. The dichloromethane (DCM)
extract from the stem showed an IC
50
value of 89.5 ± 4.9 µg/mL. The IC
50
of the
remaining active extracts is currently being determined. The antileishmanial activity of
this species will be further investigated, using intra- and extracellular parasite forms
from other Leishmania species. The metabolic profiling and targeted isolation of
bioactive constituents are in progress aiming for the identification of new lead
compounds with antileishmanial activity.
Acknowledgement: To CNPq for the financial support to Dr. VL Almeida (ref.
249299/2013 – 5).
References:
[1] Gontijo M, Rev Bras Epidemiol 2004; 7: 338 – 349
[2] Rocha et al., Phytomedicine 2005; 12: 514 – 535
[3] Corral et al., J Microbiol Methods 2013; 94: 111 – 116