Identification of compounds present in two different Caatinga medicinal plants obtained in free markets in Senhor do Bonfim – BA

Highlights

We identified compounds present in several samples of two medicinal plants. Compounds had a high variation between samples, which can mean adulteration, misidentification or storage error.

Resumo/Abstract

Medicinal plants of Brazilian native flora are consumed with little or no proof of its pharmacological properties, based only on users’ or traders’ reports. Although they are natural and, therefore, popularly considered free of side effects, medicinal plants’ toxicity is a serious public health concern, either because of the plant’s own compounds, either by adulterations or interaction with other medicines.1 Since these medicinal plants are usually sold in markets and free fairs by people without formal education, there may be labeling or manipulation problems, resulting in the absence of the desired effects or presence of adverse effects.1 These plants should have stricter control regarding the plant origin, time since it was harvested, way of collection, storage, drying and packing, and contamination presence. 2 In this work we identified compounds present in different medicinal plants samples found in Senhor do Bonfim free market (BA): six samples of Sene (Senna alexandrina; Fabaceae) and six samples of Umburana (Commiphora leptophloeo; Burseraceae). For the extraction of the compounds in sene, we used hydrodestilation, and for umburana we extracted the compounds using maceration with hexane. All extracts were analyzed by GC-MS. The main compounds present in sene extracts were n-hexadecanoic acid (49,79-84,64%), (Z,Z,Z)-9,12,15- octadecatrienoic acid (1,97-13,2%), tetradecanoic acid (2,15-4,57%), and two unidentified compounds in 1,89-11,95% and 1,45-8,49%. For umburana, the compounds present were octadec-9-enoic acid (34,56- 63,14%), cumarin (5,57-48,27%), n-hexadecanoic acid (4,93-8,32%), octadecanoic acid (2,11-3,79%) and two unidentified compounds in 3,38-7,35% and 3,48-8,97%. As we can see, compounds in both plants had a high variation between samples, which can mean either that some of the medicinal plants sold in free markets belong to a species different from the announced one or, at least, that compounds found in the sample had degraded between harvest and sale. Further analysis in molecular level will define if all samples are from the same species. Genotoxicity and cytotoxicity tests will be done with all samples in the future in order to confront chemical and toxicity data.

References

1. VEIGA JUNIOR, V. F.et al. Plantas Medicinais: Cura Segura? Quim. Nova, v. 28, n. 3, p. 519–528, 2005.

2. USTULIN, M. et al. Plantas medicinais comercializadas no Mercado Municipal de Campo Grande-MS Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia, scielo, 2009.

Agradecimentos/Acknowledgments

The authors thank CNPq and FAPESB for financial support and scholarships. We also thank ITCBio for the GC-MS analysis.