Research Paper

Life Sciences 78 (2006) 1578 – 1585 www.elsevier.com/locate/lifescie

Anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity of a medicinal tincture from Pedilanthus tithymaloides
Pedro Abreu a,*, Susan Matthew a, Tania Gonzalez a,b, David Costa c, ´ c Marcela A. Segundo , Eduarda Fernandes c c REQUIMTE, Departamento de Quımica, Faculdade de Ciencias e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal ´ ˆ b Departamento de Farmacia, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad de Oriente, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba REQUIMTE, Departamento de Quımica-Fısica, Faculdade de Farmacia da Universidade do Porto, Rua Anıbal Cunha, 164, 4099-030 Porto, Portugal ´ ´ ´ ´ Received 5 April 2005; accepted 18 July 2005

a

Abstract Pedilanthus tithymaloides (L.) Poit. (Euphorbiaceae) is a low tropical American shrub with a reported wide range of healing properties such as emetic, anti-inflammatory, antibiotic, antiseptic, antihemorrhagic, antiviral, antitumoral, and abortive. In the present study, a tincture from P. tithymaloides collected in Cuba was evaluated for its in vivo anti-inflammatory activity, using the rat paw oedema assay, and for its in vitro IÀ scavenging effects on reactive oxygen species (ROS) (HOI, O2 , HOCl, ROOI and H2O2), reactive nitrogen species (RNS) (ONOOÀ and INO), and I DPPH radical. The protein, free amino acid, and phenolic contents of the tincture were also determined. Pertaining to the anti-inflammatory activity, the intraperitoneal administration of the tincture inhibited carrageenan-induced rat paw oedema, whereas in the scavenging assays the IÀ tincture showed to be effective against all the assayed ROS and RNS, specially for HOI (IC50 = 345 T 77 Ag/mL), O2 (IC50 = 143 T 7 Ag/mL), HOCl À I (IC50 = 113 T 20 Ag/mL), ONOO (IC50 = 44 T 3 Ag/mL), and NO (IC50 = 54 T 4 Ag/mL), but displayed weak activity in the DPPH. assay. The protein content of the tincture was 0.70%, and twenty free amino acids were identified and quantified. The

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