EVALUATION OF THE ANTI-Trypanosoma cruzi ACTIVITY OF SPECIALIZED METABOLITES OBTAINED FROM Vernonanthura polyanthes (ASTERACEAE)
In this work, using the ethnopharmacological knowledge of the species Vernonanthura polyanthes (Sprengel) Vega & Damatteis (Asteraceae), popularly called “assa-peixe”, a plant widely used for the relief of respiratory diseases and also in the treatment of malaria, was the apolar extract , polar, essential oil and hydrolate of aerial parts. The extracts were fractionated using chromatographic techniques and the 1H and 13C NMR spectra were recorded. Compounds were prepared and tested in vitro for anti-T. cruzi. The triterpenes were identified: lupeol (1), α-amyrin (2), β-amyrin (3), ψ-taraxasterol (4) in a mixture of the respective acetates of lupeol (5), of α-amyrin (6), of β-amyrin (7) and ψ-taraxasterol (8), a mixture of ingestion of chlorogenic acids 3,5-O-dicaffeoylquinic(9), 3,4-O-dicaffeoylquinic (10) and 4,5 was identified - O-dicaffeoylquine (11), the steroids stigmasterol (12) and sitosterol (13). Phenolic compounds luteolin (14), velutin (15), 3-O-methylquercetin (16), ferulic acid (17), isoeugenol (18) and homovanyl alcohol (19) were isolated. By molecular dereplication, by GC-MS, 32 compounds were identified in the essential oil of this specimen. Homovanyl alcohol (19) and essential oil are active against trypomastigotes of the parasite at IC50 concentrations = 6.3 ± 1.5 and 11.5 ± 2.7 μg mL-1 respectively.