Antiproliferative, antileishmanial and antimicrobial studies on Cnidoscolus quercifolius Pohl (Euphorbiaceae)

Abstract

Cnidoscolus quercifolius is an Euphorbiaceae endemic to the northeast region of Brazil, which is used in folk medicine as anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antibiotic. An ethanolic extract was prepared with the leaves from C. quercifolius, and also partitioned and chromatographed leading to the isolation of cyanoglucoside linamarin (1), cinnamic acid (2), as well as a mixture of steroids and terpenoids (3–6). Structural elucidation of the compounds was done by IR, MS and NMR analysis. For the cyanoglucoside (1) were also evaluated its antimicrobial and antileishmanial viabilities by plaque microdilution and MTT test, respectively. Both tests showed from moderate to zero activity against the organisms evaluated. In addition, the antiproliferative activity of compounds 1 and 5–6 were tested against tumor cells, which did not show statistically significant growth inhibition 50% (GI₅₀). The obtained results suggested that further pharmacological studies should prove the folk medicinal uses.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Faveleira
• linamarin
• terpenes
• tumor cells

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank IPeFarm/Federal University of Paraíba, Certbio/Federal University of Campina Grande, Foundation to support research in the state of Paraíba -FAPESQ-PB (013/2018) and the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of Campinas for support with our analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).