AVALIAÇÃO DOS EFEITOS CARCINOGÊNICOS, GENOTÓXICOS E ANTIGENOTÓXICOS DO EXTRATO ETANÓLICO DE GOMPHENA CELOSIOIDES EM MODELO PRÉ-CLÍNICO

Abstract

The use of medicinal plants by humanity is an ancient practice that still continues, even with great advances in medicine, maintaining a considerable contribution to the conservation of health and relief from illnesses, therefore having prominence and impact on Public Health. Gomphrena, an herb popularly known as “Perpétua brava”, has been used in the treatment of various conditions in various systems, with antitumor, diuretic, antihypertensive, cytotoxic antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and analgesic therapeutic properties. Despite the great advances and the importance of the species in terms of therapeutic potential, more studies are still needed to evaluate and confirm the safety of its use. Therefore, our objective is to evaluate the genotoxic, mutagenic, immunomodulatory effects of the ethanolic extract of Gomphrena celosioides (EEGc) in somatic cells of Drosophila melanogaster and in an animal model of Swiss mice. The alternative model with Drosophila was used for the initial approach and standardization of the concentration of the extract to be tested. The results indicate that ethanolic extract of Gomphrena celosioides (EEGc) does not present genotoxic properties. All concentrations tested, of Gomphrena celosioides extract (0.96; 1.92; 3.85; 7.70 mg/mL) where approved at first step of this work, and applied to estimate the ability to induce damage to the DNA of Drosophila melanogaster somatic cells. EEGC does not appear to have had a carcinogenic effect on Drosophila melanogaster, but instead it acted as a protective factor, reducing frequency of tumors lower than the negative control, in a statistically significant way. In animal mice model, there was no evidence of genotoxicity and the association of EEGC with CTX was able to reduce the frequency of basal genotoxic damage in comet and micronuclei assays, showing protector ability.