Plumieride

Background: ;Plumeria acutifolia; (;Apocynaceae;) is an ornamental plant, used in the traditional medicine and known to have a variety of constituents as alkaloids, flavonoids, and iridoids. Extracts of this plant were proved to have antimicrobial and anticancer activities.;Objectives: ;This research was conducted for the evaluation of the biological activities of ;P. acutifolia; stem bark and isolation and structural elucidation of various chemical compounds from the biologically active fractions.;Materials and Methods: ;Methanol extract of stem bark of ;P. acutifolia; was successively fractionated with petroleum ether, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, and ;n;-butanol. The fractions were evaluated for their antimicrobial, cytotoxic, and antioxidant activities. Fractions with promising biological activities were subjected to chromatographic techniques for the isolation of compounds, followed by structural elucidation using several spectroscopic techniques.;Results: ;P. acutifolia; stem bark showed a significant antimicrobial activity, where the ethyl acetate fraction was active against ;Syncephalastrum racemosum; (7.81 μg/ml) and ;Escherichia coli; (3.9 μg/ml). The cytotoxic activity against HEPG-2, HCT-116, and MCF-7 cell lines was highest in the petroleum ether fraction, using concentrations of 1, 2.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: ;Himatanthus articulatus (Apocynaceae) is a plant native to the Amazon, popularly used to treat external ulcers, tumors, inflammations, cancer, syphilis and malaria.;AIM OF THE STUDY: ;To investigate the in vivo genotoxic and mutagenic potential of this plant, using the comet assay and the micronucleus test.;MATERIAL AND METHODS: ;Female and male adult mice were treated with 500 mg/kg, 1000 mg/kg or 2000 mg/kg of Himatanthus articulatus aqueous or ethanolic bark extracts by gavage for two consecutive days. In addition, blood slides were exposed to hydrogen peroxide (ex vivo) to evaluate the anticlastogenic effect using the comet assay. The HPLC analyses indicated plumieride as the main constituent of both extracts from Himatanthus articulatus barks.;RESULTS: ;No differences between genders were observed. Micronuclei were observed only in the group treated with the highest dose of both extracts. Conversely, lower doses of these extracts showed protective effects to DNA against damage induced by hydrogen peroxide, indicating an important antigenotoxic effect.;CONCLUSIONS: ;The toxicological evaluation indicated that the extracts are non-genotoxic and reduce the clastogenic damage induced by hydrogen peroxide.

The compounds 1-6 were isolated from the heartwood of Plumeria rubra, following bioactivity-directed fractionation. Plumericin 1 and isoplumericin 2 displayed molluscicidal, cytotoxic and antibacterial activity, 4-hydroxyacetophenone 3 was weakly cytotoxic, whereas the remaining glycosidic isolates (plumieride, 4; 13-O-coumaroylplumieride, 5; protoplumericine A, 6) were inactive in all test systems.