Phytochemical investigation of the leaves of Croton cajucara Benth and its antioxidative properties

• Autor(a) principal: Maciel, M. A. M.
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Anjos, G. C., Gomes, F. E. S., Dantas, T. N. C., Pinto, A. C., Kaiser, C. R., Miranda, A. F., Echevarria, A.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Fitos
• Texto Completo: https://revistafitos.far.fiocruz.br/index.php/revista-fitos/article/view/98
• topic: Croton cajucara; Chemical Constituents; Seasonal Variety; Microemulsions Systems; Antioxidant Properties; Croton cajucara; Composição Química; Variação Sazonal; Sistemas Microemulsionados; Propriedade Antioxidante

Phytochemical studies on the hexane (EH), chloroform (EC) and methanol (EM) extracts obtained from the leaves of Croton cajucara Benth resulted in the isolation of the known compounds β-sitosterol, stigmasterol, sitosterol-3-O-β-glucoside, kaempferol 3,4’,7-trimethyl ether, kaempferol 3,7-dimethyl ether, diterpene cajucarinolide and a non-polar hydrocarbon mixture which was rich in triacontan. The content of the hydrocarbon mixture and steroids varied according to both plant age and season of the year (ranging from 0.11 - 0.28% and 0.01 - 0.15%, respectively). Meanwhile, the seasonal evaluation of the plants leaf aging from 1½ to 6 years old showed that neither age nor the year period have affected the contents of kaempferol 3,4’,7-trimethyl ether, which was present as 0.005% in the leaves of plants along the whole age period. Due to the poor solubility of the EH, EC and EM extracts, the antioxidant effect was evaluated (DPPH-method) after their incorporation to microemulsion systems (SME) performed with a mixture of the surfactants Tween 80 and Span 20. The polar extract (EM) showed higher solubility in the SME-1 system (60% water). Both SME-3 and SME-4 systems (5% water) dissolved the non-polar extract EH. However, the chloroform extract showed higher solubility in the SME-4 system, what seems to affect the EC50 values (362 mg/mL) compared with the values for SME-3 system (280 mg/mL).