Prospecção fitoquímica e avaliação da atividade antifúngica da partição acetato de etila das folhas de Cassia bakeriana Craib

Abstract

Diseases caused by fungus can be both superficial and invasive and pose a growing threat to human health worldwide, especially to people with compromised immunity, which in some cases can lead to death. Studies have shown that the most commonly used antifungal agents are not completely effective due to the development of antifungal resistance, toxicity and undesirable side effects of these drugs in patients. Therefore, the search for new bioactive substances is necessary and natural products have been a source for the development of new drugs. In this context, Brazil is a country with a rich biodiversity, becoming important for the study of natural products. The genus Cassia has shown great potential since studies have proven the biological activities of various species. Thus, this work studied Cassia bakeriana Craib species, aiming to determine the antifungal activity of extracts and partitions and to evaluate the chemical composition of ethyl acetate partition (P-EA), obtained by liquid-liquid extraction from ethanolic extract of leaves using high performance liquid chromatography coupled with high resolution mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS). P-AE presented minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 187.5 µg mL– 1 against Candida glabrata, 375 µg mL– 1 against Candida albicans and 750 µg mL– 1 against Candida tropicalis, and due to these results the partition was selected for compound identification. Through the HPLC of P-AE it was possible to determine the presence of flavonoids such as quercetin (m/z 301,0356), protocatechuic acid (m/z 153,0194), proanthocyanidins such as (epi)afzelechin-(epi)catechin (m/z 561.1401) and cyanine anthocyanin (m/z 611.1610). These compounds may be related to the antifungal activity presented by P-AE, once the antifungal activity of some of them has been described in the literature.