Safety assessment of Piper cernuum Vell. (Piperaceae) leaves extract: Acute, sub-acute toxicity and genotoxicity studies
Graphical abstract
Introduction
The use of natural products has considerably increased in recent years, and this increase is associated with the fact that the population believes that natural products did not present toxic effects (Moreira et al., 2010, Yuan et al., 2016). However, most of natural products has not been scientifically evaluated, and therefore, little is known about their adverse effects, compromising the use of these products in folk medicine (Wiesner, 2014). In this context, an increment in researches to confirm the efficacy and mainly the safety of natural products used by population is needed (Agbaire et al., 2013).
An example of natural product with little information in the literature is Piper cernuum Vell (Piperaceae), popularly known as Pariparoba, a native species from the Atlantic rainforest (Mariot et al., 2002). This species is considered a medicinal plant, and is commonly used by rural and urban inhabitants of Region of Vale do Ribeira, State of São Paulo, Brazil to treat pain conditions, such as bellyache and muscle pain (topically), besides hepatic and renal complications (Di Stasi et al., 2002).
Pharmacologically, there is a lack of information about the P. cernuum's leaves extract effects, just few works showing its antileishmanial (Capello et al., 2015) and antimicrobial (Costantin et al., 2001) effects. Similarly, the literature is scarce of information about the P. cernuum safety profile. It is known that this medicinal plant is popularly used, therefore we emphasize the data presented in this study about acute and sub-acute toxicity, genotoxicity and cytotoxicity of P. cernuum leaves extract.
Section snippets
Plant material and preparation of extract
P. cernuum Vell (Piperaceae) leaves were collected (a cultivated specie) in Blumenau, a city in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil (Latitude: 26°58'43.8"S, Longitude: 49°03'43.0"W, and Altitude: 200 m) in March (summer) 2015. Prof. Andre Luis de Gasper, Curator Herbarium of Dr. Roberto Miguel Klein from Universidade Regional de Blumenau, classified the material. Samples of the specimen were deposited in this Herbarium with the number 41606.
The leaves were dried at 40 °C for seven days,
Results and discussion
As previously mentioned, P. cernuum leaves is used in the folk medicine as infusion or macerate with alcohol to treat pain conditions, and renal and hepatic complications (Mariot et al., 2002, Di Stasi et al., 2002). However, there is few data about its pharmacological and toxicological effects. In this context, we investigated the acute and sub-acute toxicity, mutagenic, genotoxicity and cytotoxicity profile of P. cernuum hydroalcoholic extract using in vitro and in vivo experimental models.
Conclusion
Our data demonstrates for the first time that P. cernuum leaves extract is relative safe to acute and sub-acute use. However, it is important to point out that extract presents genotoxic effects in vitro only in high concentrations. In this way, further studies are required to evaluate the safety of long-term exposure, as well as the genotoxic effects in vivo.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by government grants from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Brazil (CNPq, process n. 444682/2014-7) and Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa e Inovação do Estado de Santa Catarina (FAPESC), Brazil. Universidade do Vale do Itajaí (UNIVALI), Brazil, also provided financial support.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interests.
Author's contributions
J.R. Santin, J.C. Vitorino, and A. Malheiros conceived and designed the study; F.R. Wolff, M.F. Broering, J.D. Jurcevic and T. Zermiani performed the experiments, analyzed the data. J.R. Santin and A. Malheiros wrote the paper; A. Malheiros and F.R. Wolff collected the plant and carried out the extraction. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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