Avaliação da atividade citotóxica de subfrações do látex de Euphorbia umbellata (Pax) Bruyns e eufol

Abstract

Euphorbia umbellata (Pax) Bruyns has its latex used, ethno-pharmacologically, for the treatment of cancer, including leukemias. A malignant disease that affects leukocytes, with high incidence, being the most common type of cancer in childhood. Chemotherapy treatment is, normally, the most recommended, but it presents as very aggressive therapy and with several side effects. Therefore, the objective of this work was to evaluate the cytotoxic potential of the hexane fraction of Euphorbia umbellata latex, the subfraction of that and the isolated substance, euphol, against leukemia model lines. For this, the cells, Jurkat and HL-60, were treated for 72 hours with the hexane fraction (1.25-75 μg/mL), subfractions petroleum ether, dichloromethane, ethanol and methanol (1.25-75 μg/mL), and euphol (10-50 μg/mL), and their cell viability was evaluated by the assay of MTT reduction at the end of this period. For the dichloromethane subfraction (the most active), the cell viability was evaluated in the period of 24 and 48 hours, in addition, the selectivity index was determined. It should be noted that the hexane fraction and subfractions were obtained by fractionation in Soxhlet extractor, while euphol by acid precipitation, followed by column chromatography, and being identified by nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry. The hexane fraction was partitioned and the resulting subfractions were analyzed by gas chromatography coupled to the mass spectrometer. The chromatographic evaluation of the subfractions allowed to suggest 10 substances, the triterpenes: euphol; lanosterol; cycloartenol; tirucallol; taraxasterol and lupeol, the diterpenes: phorbol-12,13,20-triacetate; 4- β-phorbol and 3-deoxo-3-16-dihydroxy-12-deoxyphorbol-3-13-16-20-tetracetate, and the steroid sitosterol. As a result of the cytotoxic assay, an IC50 of 0.061 ± 1.226 μg/mL was obtained for HL-60 cells and 4.624 ± 1.088 μg/mL for Jurkat cells; and for euphol an IC50 of 21.031 ± 1.778 μg/ml (HL-60) and 35.925 ± 5.011 μg/ml (Jurkat). Among the subfractions, the dichloromethane presented the best response profile with values of 0,005±0,098 μg/mL (HL-60) and 0,200±0,957 μg/mL (Jurkat), revealing that the treatment is time dependent. In addition, the dichloromethane subfraction was selective for the treatment of leukemia with indexes of selectivity superior to 2.Therefore, it is concluded that the subfraction dichloromethane is promising for the treatment of leukemia, possibly by synergistic action of the terpenes in it.