Study of the bioactivity of medicinal plants´ extracts: diplotaxis muralis and cochlospermum angolensis

• Autor(a) principal: Ferreira, Márcio Paulo Cardinal
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/13695
• topic: Antibacterial; Plants; Oxidative stress

The leaves of the Diplotaxis muralis (Arugula) are the most metabolic part of the plant. Here, photosynthesis plays an essential role. Arugula is a fast-growing perennial plant that grows in the winter and produces new shoots in the spring. It has a spicy taste and pleasant odor and it is originated in Europe and West Asia. Cochlospermum angolensis (Borututo) is a plant with medicinal properties used for the treatment in prophylaxis against malaria and hepatic pathology. However, further studies are needed to prove its chemical composition and biological activity. As the use of D. muralis is recurrent within the Portuguese population and the use of C. angolensis is frequent within the Angolan population, the objectives of this study were to describe the state of art for their uses, through popular knowledge and existing bibliography, and to evaluate their anti-bacterial activity, through aqueous and organic extracts. Organic and aqueous extracts were obtained by the classical extraction technique, using as solvents distilled water, ethanol and dimethylsufoxide. Measurement of 3-nitrotyrosine (3-NT) in biological samples can be used as a biomarker of nitrosative stress, since it is very stable and suitable for analysis. The results indicate that Arugula does not present antibacterial properties for the studied strains. However, Borututo presents chemical compounds that confer antibacterial properties on the organic extract. With these results, it possible to concluded that Borututo may present properties of interest to the pharmaceutical and food industries.