Atividade esquistossomicida in vitro do extrato diclorometânico e metabólitos das inflorescências de Piper aduncum L. (Piperaceae)

Abstract

Schistosomiasis is a disease that affects more than 240 million individuals in the world and 700 million people in the world remain under risk of infection. In Brazil, the Minas Gerais state is one of the most affected by this disease. Nowadays, the only drug available for treatment of disease is praziquantel (PZQ). However, this drug is already on market for decades and has shown ineffectiveness. In this context, extract and secondary metabolites of the genus Piper (Piperaceae) have shown an expressive schistosomicidal activity. Thus, the present work describes the phytochemical study of the dichloromethane extract of Piper aduncum L. (PaI) inflorescences, as well as its in vitro schistosomicidal evaluation and its fractions and metabolites. The phytochemical study, the chloroform fraction, obtained by PaI, was subjected to fractionation using chromatographic on silica gel columns that allowed the isolation and identification of four metabolites: one diidrochalcone, one chalcone and two flavanones, from which the diidrochalcone uvangoletin and the chalcone cardamonin were reported for the first time in this species of Piper. In the in vitro schistosomicidal study, was used adult worms of the S. mansoni BH strain and the parameters evaluated were mortality, motility and alterations tegumental surface. The results this study showed that the crude dichloromethane extract (PaI), at 200 μg/mL, show has expressive schistosomicidal activity being able to cause 100% of death in parasites after 24 h of incubation. Relative schistosomicidal activity of the fractions, chloroform fractions (200 μg/mL) was the most active being able to death of all worms after 48 h , while hexane fractions, at the same concentration, also being able to cause this effect after 72h of incubation. On the other hand, ethyl acetate fractions show inactive. Among pure compounds obtained from chloroform fraction, cardamonin was the most active, being able, at 25 μM, to both kill and cause tegumental alterations in 100% of adult worms of S. mansoni in the first 24 h of incubation. On the other hand, uvangoletin showed weak activity, while flavanone pinocembrin was inactive, both at concentration of 100 μM. The results obtained in this study, combined with those already achieved by our research group, demonstrate the great potential of chalcones as prototypes for the development of new antischistosomal drugs.