Amburana cearensis: Pharmacological and Neuroprotective Effects of Its Compounds.

Juliana Helena Castro E Silva,Elisabetta Caiazzo,Silvia Lima Costa,Cleonice Creusa Dos Santos,Raffaele Capasso,Monique Marylin Alves De Almeida,Suzana Braga-De-Souza,Erica Patricia Pereira,Arthur Morgan Butt,Rafael Short Ferreira,Victor Diogenes Amaral Da Silva

doi:10.3390/molecules25153394

Juliana Helena Castro E Silva, Elisabetta Caiazzo + Show 9 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25153394

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Abstract

Amburana cearensis A.C. Smith is an endemic tree from Northeastern Brazil used in folk medicine as teas, decocts and syrups for the treatment of various respiratory and inflammatory diseases, since therapeutic properties have been attributed to compounds from its stem bark and seeds. Numerous pharmacological properties of semi-purified extracts and isolated compounds from A. cearensis have been described in several biological systems, ranging from antimicrobial to anti-inflammatory effects. Some of these activities are attributed to coumarins and phenolic compounds, the major compounds present in A. cearensis seed extracts. Multiple lines of research demonstrate these compounds reduce oxidative stress, inflammation and neuronal death induced by glutamate excitotoxicity, events central to most neuropathologies, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s Disease (PD). This review focuses on the botanical aspects, folk medicine use, biological effects and pharmacological activities of A. cearensis compounds and their potential as novel non-toxic drugs for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Highlights

Native plants of the legume family (Fabaceae) from the Brazilian Caatinga, a semi-arid biome, represent a large number of plants with ethnopharmacological properties for the treatment of various diseases [1]
This study mentions the extracts have trypsin inhibition activity, with 12.23 ± 0.29 g of trypsin being inhibited per kg of extract. These findings suggest that A. cearensis extract contains molecules that are involved in plant defense and can act as larvicidal via inhibition of proteases
In vitro and in vivo studies show that phenolic compounds, including fisetin and coumarins, present in A. cearensis can act as antioxidants and reduce oxidative stress and mitochondrial damage [103,104,105,106], act as an anti-inflammatory by reducing the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines that can initiate and persist chronic inflammation and increasing the levels of regulatory cytokines [107,108,109], reduce misfolded protein cytotoxicity [110,111], act as neurogenic drugs [93,112] and modulate glutamate cytotoxicity [93,113,114]

Summary

Introduction

Native plants of the legume family (Fabaceae) from the Brazilian Caatinga, a semi-arid biome, represent a large number of plants with ethnopharmacological properties for the treatment of various diseases [1]. A range of pharmacological properties of extracts and isolated compounds from the different parts of A. cearensis have been reported in the literature. These properties include the antibacterial effect of a stem bark chloroform extract [7], the in vitro anti-malarial effect of a stem bark dichloromethane extract and a variety of isolated compounds with anti-falciparum, leishmanicidal and bactericidal activities [2]. Many studies attribute the action of these compounds present mostly in the stem bark and seed extracts to their anti-inflammatory potential [8,9], which stimulated research into its effects in experimental models of central nervous system (CNS) diseases associated with neuroinflammation. We present a review of the general aspects of A. cearensis botany and phytochemistry and the state of the art findings concerning A. cearensis pharmacological effects, including an overview of the latest findings on activities of A. cearensis products in CNS in vitro study models

Botany

Toxicology

Chemical Constituents

Biological Activities

Findings

Conclusions