Produção do extrato aquoso de Urera baccifera (L.) Gaudich. ex Wedd. e sua avaliação citotóxica in vitro

Abstract

According to popular medicine, Urera baccifera is a plant with a vast medicinal property. The extraction of compounds to produce phytotherapeutics is of utmost importance, and new technologies in extraction have helped in obtaining desired compounds with properties suitable to help in the treatment of certain diseases. One method for the analysis and development of new drugs is through the evaluation of their cytotoxicity in vitro, with normal and tumor cell lines. Thus, the objective of this study was to produce an aqueous extract of Urera baccifera (L.) Gaudich. ex Wedd. and to evaluate its cytotoxicity against human liver (HUH7.5), Rattus norvegicus liver (HTC) and normal Macaca mullata kidney (LLC-MK2) tumor cells, by the MTT test. The aqueous extraction of U. baccifera was performed by solid-liquid extraction via Soxhlet, with the solvents ethanol, hexane and water for 8 hours, and by maceration with constant stirring with the solvent water at room temperature for 30 minutes. The aqueous extract produced by maceration showed an average EC50 equal to 149.18 gextract/gDPPH for antioxidant activity. When tested on tumor cell lines, it showed cytotoxic effect for UH7.5 tumor cells in 24 hours at a concentration of 1000 μg/mL, and in 72 hours at concentrations of 300, 400 and 500 μg/mL. For HTC cells it showed cytotoxic effect at concentrations 200, 400, 500 and 1000 μg/mL at 48 and 72 hours. For normal LLC-MK2 cells the cytotoxicity occurred only at 48 hours time for the concentrations of 400, 500 and 1000 μg/mL. Thus, the extract showed a promising effect, because besides having antioxidant activity, it maintained the cytotoxic effect over the treatment time only for the tumor cell lines.