Estudo farmacognóstico e abordagem farmacológica de Justicia acuminatissima (MIQ.) BREMEK. (ACANTHACEAE)

Abstract

Justicia acuminatissima is a member of Acanthaceae family, known under the name of sara tudo and used in Amazonian in differents kinds of teas for treatment of inflammatory process. Despites the use, there isn´t in the literature information about the chemical constituints, farmacological action, or toxicological data. There is not information that gaves pharmacobotanical support that could help in correct identification. The present work did a farmacognostical approach of this specie, performing pharmacobotanical characterization, describing a phytochemical profile, evaluating the toxicity in the acute model of toxicity and addressing pharmacological activity attribuites to the plant, and correlated the same activities, such as platelet agrgregation, blood clotting and ulcerogenic capacity of it. The pharmacobotanical characterization provides tools for the correct identification, describing the kind of issues and this organizations in the vegetable with the structures that are present as if tricomas and stomatas. The phytochemical profile describes the presence of coumarines, steroids, saponins, tannins and cathequins. The coumarines presence is considerate very important because this presence is rare in the Acanthacea family. The pharmacological tests were based in the popular knowledge of the use of this specie, thus the extract were done with water as solvent, order to approach the use made by the population. The aqueous extract was safe in the acute toxicity model and the antiinflamatory activity was verify in the formalin model, and were confirmed in the rat paw edema. Besides, the extract don t show ulcerative power despites its antiinflamatory activity. The results in this work reaffirm the premiss that the popular uses serves as screening for the finding of natural products with benefitial activitys for man, since the antiinflamatory activity is in fact present in the aquos extract of the leaves oh this vegetable.The present work contribuites with the characterization of one more specie of the Amazonic flora, providing informations that can help in the correct use of medicinal plants and can be starting point for further studies.