Abstract
BackgroundNatural antioxidants present in common foods and beverages have drawn great attention to cancer prevention due to its health benefits, remarkable lack of toxicity and side effects. Copaifera langsdorffii, known as “copaiba”, “capaiva”, or “pau-de-óleo“, belongs to the Leguminosae family and occurs in fields and grasslands in the northern and northeastern parts of Brazil. Biological studies of Copaifera corroborate its widespread use by the population. This paper describes the effects of C. langsdorffii leaves hydroalcoholic extract on the 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH)-induced DNA damage and aberrant crypt foci (ACF) in the colon of male Wistar rats.MethodsThe hydroalcoholic extract of C. langsdorffii was administered to rats by gavage at daily doses of 20, 40 and 80 mg/kg body weight. To evaluate DNA damage by the comet assay, animals received the C. langsdorffii extract for seven days and a single subcutaneous injection (sc) of 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH) at a dose of 40 mg/kg on day 7. Animals were sacrificed 4 h after injection of DMH, to assess DNA damage. For the ACF assay, animals were acclimatized for one week (week 1) and then treated with the C. langsdorffii extract five times a week for four weeks (weeks 2 to 5). The rats received sc injections of DMH (40 mg/kg) on days 2 and 5 of weeks 2 and 3, to induce ACF. Animals were euthanized at week 5; i.e., four weeks after the first DMH treatment.ResultsAnimals treated with different doses of the C. langsdorffii extract combined with DMH had significantly lower frequency of DNA damage as compared with the positive control (animals treated with DMH only). The percentage of reduction in the frequency of DNA damage ranged from 14.30% to 38.8%. The groups treated with 40 and 80 mg/kg C. langsdorffii extract during and after DMH treatment presented significantly lower numbers of ACF and aberrant crypts compared with the control.ConclusionThe C. langsdorffii extract significantly reduced the extent of DNA damage and ACF induced by DMH, suggesting that the extract has a protective effect against colon carcinogenesis.
Highlights
Natural antioxidants present in common foods and beverages have drawn great attention to cancer prevention due to its health benefits, remarkable lack of toxicity and side effects
The comet assay did not reveal any significant differences between animals treated with the C. langsdorffii extract only (80 mg/kg) and the negative control group, showing that the extract does not display genotoxicity (Table 3)
Animals treated with different doses of the C. langsdorffii extract combined with DMH had significantly less DNA damage as compared with the positive control − DNA damage decreased between 14.3% and 38.8%, with the C. langsdorffii extract exerting a non-significant dose-dependent protective effect
Summary
Natural antioxidants present in common foods and beverages have drawn great attention to cancer prevention due to its health benefits, remarkable lack of toxicity and side effects. Known as “copaiba”, “capaiva”, or “pau-de-óleo“, belongs to the Leguminosae family and occurs in fields and grasslands in the northern and northeastern parts of Brazil. Popularly known as “copaiba”, “copaíva”, or “pau-de-óleo”, belongs to the family Leguminosae and occurs in fields and grasslands in northern and northeastern Brazil. The C. langsdorffii oil-resin is a folk remedy in its natural form and presents several biological activities such as antiparasitic action against Leishmania amazonensis [6] as well as antinociceptive [7], anti-inflammatory [8], analgesic [8], diuretic [9,10], antitumoral [11], antiulcerogenic [12], anti-lipoperoxidation [13], and antioxidant [13] effects
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