Bioactivities of Piper aduncum L. and Piper obliquum Ruiz & Pavon (Piperaceae) essential oils from Eastern Ecuador

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Abstract

Essential oils from aerial parts of Piper aduncum (Matico) and Piper obliquum (Anis del Oriente) of ecuadorian origin were analyzed by GC–FID, GC–MS, 13C NMR and their biological and pharmacological activities were assessed. Chemical composition proved to be unusually different from previous reports for safrole-rich P. obliquum (45.8%), while P. aduncum main constituent was dillapiol (45.9%). No genotoxic activity was found in the Ames/Salmonella typhimurium (TA98 and TA100) assay, either with or without S9 activation. Mutagen-protective properties, evaluated using sodium azide, 2-nitrofluorene and 2-aminoanthracene as mutagens/promutagens, was observed against promutagen 2-aminoanthracene, likely in consequence of microsomial deactivation. Antimicrobial assays have been performed on Gram+/Gram− bacteria, dermatophyte and phytopathogenic fungi and best results were provided by P. aduncum against fungal strains with complete inhibition at 500 μg/ml. Preliminary analgesic and antithrombotic activities evidenced the absence of the former in hot plate and edema assays and a limited antiplatelet action against three different agonists (ADP, AA and U46619). Both oils have a very limited antioxidant capacity.

Introduction

Piper genus includes about 1000 paleoherb species, with distinctive swollen nodes and drooping spikes, frequently found in the understory and secondary vegetation of tropical forest canopy of the Americas and Asia. Most species are fast-growing aromatic shrubs or vines and many of them have a renowned traditional antiseptic, insecticidal and antimicrobic use (Sengupta and Ray, 1987, Ehringhaus, 1997, Navickiene et al., 2006, de Morais et al., 2007, Fazolin et al., 2007, Duarte et al., 2007). Some Pipers are also employed in folk medicine as analgesics in pain management, toothache and wound treatment (Gatti, 1985). From a phytochemical standpoint, safrole, dillapiol, myristicine and similar methylenedioxyphenyl derivatives have been frequently detected in sensible amounts in the genus (Parmar et al., 1997) and many of these compounds are known to be toxic (Buchanan, 1978) and liable to induce DNA alteration via different mechanisms, often involving hepatic bioactivation (Dietz and Bolton, 2007). Notwithstanding their widespread traditional and commercial use, Piper essential oils have been scarcely evaluated for their mutagenic/genotoxic properties and received little attention on this regard, despite the renowned toxicological profiles of some of the aforementioned substances.

Piper obliquum Ruiz & Pavon is a shrub growing in lowland secondary rainforests of Central and South America. Its leaves are utilized as analgesic or antiarthritic by topic application on the affected body part in Guyana and Ecuador, where the plant is known with the popular name of “Anìs del Oriente”, due to its distinct anis-like perfume (Defilippis et al., 2004). Despite the wide number of chemotaxonomic studies performed on the composition of Piper species, a single report on P. obliquum from Panama is available (Mundina et al., 1998). The knowledge on possible intraspecific chemodiversity for this specie is thus extremely limited. Putative analgesic, antimicrobial properties and the evaluation of its genotoxic profile and possible intraspecific chemodiversity have not been assessed.

Piper aduncum L., also known as “matìco”, “aperta-ruao”, “pimenta longa” or “bamboo piper” is a multistemmed shrub of more than 5 m height, native of the Caribbean but adapted to thrive through the whole tropics, often acting as a weed in disturbed habitats. It presents a wide range of traditional uses and its essential oil is a well-known insecticide, molluschicide and antibacterial (Pohlit et al., 2006). Tea made from leaves and roots is used to treat diarrhea, dysentery, nausea, ulcers, genito-urinary infections and is also traditionally utilized for the control of bleeding as an antihemorrhagic (Bennett et al., 2002, Francis, 2003, Pohlit et al., 2006). It is yet unclear if essential oil constituents may be accounted as responsible or co-responsible for such activities and a certain degree of intraspecific chemodiversity has been pointed out (bin Jantan et al., 1994, Maia et al., 1998, Vila et al., 2005).

In this paper the first report of the chemical composition, genotoxic profile and overview of bioactivity of P. obliquum essential oil from Eastern Ecuador is provided, along with the definition of genotoxic profile and bioactive properties of P. aduncum essential oil of the same origin.

Section snippets

Plant material

P. obliquum and P. aduncum aerial parts were supplied by Fundacion Chankuap’ (Macas, Ecuador) and collected at blooming in January 2006 from wild plants growing in three different locations on the outskirts of the Wasak’entsa reserve in eastern Ecuador (77°15″W/2°35″S) and positively identified by the National Herbary of Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador (J. Jaramillo). Dried specimens were deposited at the Department of Biology and Evolution, University of Ferrara, Code POB001 and

Results and discussion

Table 1 reports the composition for each component of P. obliquum and P. aduncum essential oils, whose composition resulted uniform from the three different samplings. For fingerprinting purposes, 1H NMR analyses were performed (Fig. 1); resonances and chemical shifts for identified constituents were assigned as listed in Table 2. Thirty-three compounds accounting for 98.7% and 46 compounds accounting for 95.7% of the total were respectively identified. For P. obliquum, data collected were

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

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