Estudo químico e de atividade biológica comparativo do látex do leite de amapá extraído de duas espécies botânicas distintas

Abstract

For centuries, the plants have been the single source for the treatment of several diseases, and some of them have been employed in the traditional medicine. In the Amazon region, there is a great diversity of medicinal plant, but only a few were studied so far. The species popularly known as “amapazeiros” or “leite de amapa”, Brosimum paranarioides (Huber) Ducke from Moraceae family and Parahancornia amapa (Huber) from Apocynaceae family, respectively known as “amapa amargo” and “amapa doce”, had not been studied thoroughly yet. These species are used against bleeding, in the treatment of respiratory diseases, or as antiinflammatory, tonic or fortifiers. Herein, we describe for the first time the isolation of five triterpenes, butyrospermol and your epimer tirucalla-7,24-dien-3β-ol, cycloartenol, cycloeucalenol and obtusifoliol from B. parinarioides. A mixture of hydroxylated and another of non-hydroxylated acyl-lupeol esters isolated from P. amapa were also fully characterized by mass spectrometry. Chromatographic profiles, by TLC and HPLC, were also performed and common features between the species were found, such as the presence of the acetates of α, β-amirina and lupeol. On the other hand, the mixture of hydroxylated acyl-lupeol esters occured solely in P. amapa, whereas cycloeucalenol and obtusifoliol in B. parinarioides. The pharmacological properties of both species were also evaluated. Due to its popular use, the coagulation capacity was assessed for some of the constituents, and the extracts as well, by the prothrombin test (PT), having heparin as positive control. The inhibition of the enzyme lipoxygenase (LOX) was also evaluated. All tested samples showed no coagulant or anticoagulant activity. However, significant inhibition of LOX, comparable to the positive control of quercetin, was observed for the acetylated triterpenes and both extracts, which is in agreement with the popular use of both species as anti-allergic.