Chemical Constituents and Pharmacology properties of Aristolochia triangularis: a south brazilian highly-consumed botanical with multiple bioactivities.

Simone Q Oliveira,Tatiana R Guimarães,Cláudia M.O Simões,Cesar P Simionato,Eloir P Schenkel,Jadel M Kratz,Mário Steindel,Sérgio A.L Bordignon,Danielle T.M Costa,Sapfo Dimitrakoudi,Vitor C Chaves,Argyro Vontzalidou,Flávio H Reginatto

doi:10.1590/0001-3765201920180621

Abstract

Aristolochia triangularis Cham., is one of the most frequently used medicinal plant in Southern Brazil. Preparations containing the leaves and/or stems are traditionally used as anti-inflammatory, diuretic, as well as antidote against snakebites. This study screened A. triangularis extracts, fractions and isolated compounds for different bioactivities. A weak antiproliferative activity against human lung cancer cell line (A549) was observed only for chloroform fraction obtained from stems (CFstems - CC50: 2.93 µg/mL). Also, a moderate antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus was detected just for chloroform fraction obtained from leaves (CFleaves -13-16 mm inhibition zone). Additionally, two semi-purified fractions (CFstems-4 and CFleaves-4) selectively inhibited HSV-1 replication (IC50 values of 0.40 and 2.61 µg/mL, respectively), while only CFleaves showed promising results against Leishmania amazonensis. Fractionation of extracts resulted in the isolation of one neolignan (-) cubebin and one lignan (+) galbacin. However, these compounds are not responsible for the in vitro bioactivities herein detected. The presence of aristolochic acid I and aristolochic acid II in the crude ethanol extract of stems (CEEstems) and leaves (CEEleaves) was also investigated. The HPLC analysis of these extracts did not display any peak with retention time or UV spectra comparable to aristolochic acids I and II.

Highlights

The Aristolochia genus (Aristolochiaceae) comprises about 500 species of herbaceous perennials, undershrub or shrubs widespread across Europe, tropical Asia, Africa and South America (Neinhuis et al 2005)
In South Brazil, according to a study conducted by EPAGRI (Santa Catarina Agricultural Agency) (Silva-Junior and Salerno 2012), A. triangularis was cited as the most frequently used medicinal plant in Santa Catarina State
Concerning the antiproliferative activity of compounds 1 and 2, the results indicated a weak action suggesting that these compounds, individually, are not responsible for the detected activity

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The Aristolochia genus (Aristolochiaceae) comprises about 500 species of herbaceous perennials, undershrub or shrubs widespread across Europe, tropical Asia, Africa and South America (Neinhuis et al 2005). Several Aristolochia species have been used worldwide as anti-inflammatory (Muschietti et al 1996) and to treat rheumatic pains and fevers (Battu et al 2011) and complications of snakebites (Bhattacharjee and Bhattacharyya 2013). Concerning the chemical composition of Aristolochia species, flavonoids (Machado and Lopes 2005, Battu et al 2011), lignans (Zhai et al 2004, 2005, De Pascoali et al 2006, León-Diaz et al 2010), terpenoids (Wu et al 2005), aristolochic acids and their esters (Cosyns 2003, Chung et al 2011), and aristolactams (Marti et al 2013) are described. A preliminary examination related to the presence of aristolochic acids in stems and leaves of this medicinal plant by HPLC was conducted

MATERIALS AND METHODS

EXTRACTION PROCEDURES

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSIONS