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Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Lafoensia pacari A. St.-Hil., belonging to the family Lythraceae and popularly known as 'dedaleira' and 'mangava-brava,' is a native tree of the Brazilian Cerrado, and its barks have been traditionally used as a tonic to treat inflammatory conditions, particularly related to gastric ulcers, wounds or fevers and various types of cancer., Aim of the Study: We have previously demonstrated the apoptogenic effects of the methanolic extract of L. pacari using various cancer cell lines. In the present study, this extract has been partitioned into fractions to identify the components that might be responsible for the apoptogenic effects using HRT-18 cells, which have been previously demonstrated to be sensitive to this extract., Materials and Methods: A standard methanolic extract was prepared and fractionated by centrifugal partition chromatography. The fractions were submitted to cytotoxicity and clonogenic assays to monitor the effects in parallel with LC-DAD-MS and statistical analyses to suggest the potential bioactive compounds., Results: Besides ellagic acid, the primary constituent of the plant and also the biomarker of the species, punicalin, pedunculagin and punicalagin isomers, catechin and ellagic acid derivatives were putatively identified., Conclusions: The barks of L. pacari are rich in ellagic acid and various hydrolysable tannins, some of which were reported for the first time in this species, such as punicalagin and ellagitannins. This mixture of substances had the ability to kill proliferating cells and abrogate the growth of clonogenic cells in a similar manner shown by the methanolic extract of our previous study. The collective data reported herein suggest that the biological activities of the L. pacari barks used by population to treat cancer conditions are due to the apoptogenic effects promoted by a mixed content of ellagitannins., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: The stem barks of Lafoensia pacari have been traditionally used not only by South Amerindians but also by Brazilian and Paraguayan populations for treating a variety of unhealthy conditions to which their biological potential has been scientifically documented in several reports over the last decade. Although its anticancer usage is also popular, no scientific support for such activity has been found., Aim: To provide scientific evidence for the anticancer popularity of Lafoensia pacari., Materials and Methods: Extracts prepared according to the popular use along with a methanol extract and its four fractions were produced from Lafoensia pacari stem barks. The chromatogram profile of each one was obtained by HPLC. Several tumor cell lines were exposed to these solutions in in vitro assays and the effects evaluated by morphological, growth, and cell cycle status changes., Results: High toxicity determined by the lactate dehydrogenase levels with a significant drop in the cell proliferation index were found for all cell lines included in this study after exposition to Lafoensia pacari extract and fractions. The morphological features along with the expression of annexin V have strongly suggested apoptosis induction, which has been confirmed by G0/G1 cell cycle arrest., Conclusions: The data have clearly shown that exposition of human tumor cell lines to Lafoensia pacari stem barks extract leads to apoptosis induction due to cell cycle arrest in G0/G1 phases, supporting its anticancer use., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Malva sylvestris is a species used worldwide as an alternative to anti-inflammatory therapies; however, its mechanism of action remains unknown. In this paper, the anti-inflammatory effects of M. sylvestris alcoholic extracts were evaluated by measuring the pro-inflammatory mediators PGE₂ and PGD₂ in desferrioxamine-stimulated phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate-differentiated U937 cells. An HPLC-DAD fingerprint of the M. sylvestris extract was performed and caffeic acid, ferulic acid and scopoletin were identified and quantified. An HPLC-MS/MS method was developed and validated to separate and measure the prostaglandins. The lower limits of detection (~0.5 ng/mL for PGE₂ and PGD₂) and quantification (1.0 ng/mL for PGE₂ and PGD₂) indicated that the method is highly sensitive. The calibration curves showed excellent coefficients of correlation (r > 0.99) over the range of 1.0-500.0 ng/mL, and at different levels, the accuracy ranged from 96.4 to 106.4% with an RSD < 10.0% for the precision study. This method was successfully applied using U937-d cells. A significant dose-dependent reduction of PGE2 and PGD2 levels occurred using 10 µg/mL (10.74 ± 2.86 and 9.60 ± 6.89%) and 50 µg/mL of extract (48.37 ± 3.24 and 53.06 ± 6.15%), suggesting that the anti-inflammatory mechanisms evoked by M. sylvestris may be related to modulation of these mediators., (Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)