Chemical Constituents and Antileishmanial and Antibacterial Activities of Essential Oils from Scheelea phalerata

Daiane M Oliveira; Fabiana B Furtado; Antoniel A S Gomes; Belisa R Belut; Evandro A Nascimento; Sérgio A L Morais; Carlos H G Martins; Vinícius C O Santos; Claudio V da Silva; Thaise L Teixeira; Luís C S Cunha; Alberto de Oliveira; Francisco J T de Aquino

doi:10.1021/acsomega.9b01962

Chemical Constituents and Antileishmanial and Antibacterial Activities of Essential Oils from Scheelea phalerata

ACS Omega. 2020 Jan 10;5(3):1363-1370. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.9b01962. eCollection 2020 Jan 28.

Affiliations

¹ Nucleus of Research in Natural Products (NuPPeN), Institute of Chemistry, Federal University of Uberlândia, Av. João Naves de Ávila, 2121, Campus Santa Mônica, Uberlândia, MG CEP 38400-902, Brazil.
² Institute of Biosciences of Botucatu, Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Institute of Biosciences of Botucatu, Department of Physics and Biophysics, Unesp-São Paulo State University, 250 Distrito de Rubião Junior, Botucatu, SP CEP 18618-689, Brazil.
³ Nucleus of Research in Sciences and Technology, Laboratory of Research in Applied Microbiology (LaPeMA), University of Franca, 201 Parque Universitário, Franca, SP 14404-600, Brazil.
⁴ Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Laboratory of Trypanosomatids, Federal University of Uberlândia, Campus Umuarama, Av. Pará 1720 Bloco 2B, Uberlândia, MG CEP 38400-902, Brazil.
⁵ Nucleus of Bioprospecting in Natural Products (NuBiProN), Chemistry Department, Federal Institute of the Triângulo Mineiro, 4000 Distrito Industrial I, Uberaba, MG 38064-790, Brazil.

Abstract

Scheelea phalerata Mart. ex Spreng (Arecaceae) is a palm tree found in the Brazilian cerrado. There are no topics related to volatile oils from S. phalerata leaves in the literature. This work determines its chemical composition and evaluates the biological activity under two different seasonal conditions (dry and rainy seasons). The dry essential oil yield was 0.034 ± 0.001% and the rainy essential oil yield was 0.011 ± 0.003%. Both essential oils presented different qualitative and quantitative compositions (99.4 and 98.5%). The main constituents of the dry essential oil were phytol (36.7%), nonadecane (9.7%), linolenic acid (9.1%), (Z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (4.2%), and squalene (4.0%). The main constituents of the rainy essential oil were phytol (26.1%), palmitic acid (18.7%), hexan-1-ol (15.6%), (Z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (9.7%), and oleic acid (4.0%). The antileishmanial activity against promastigotes of Leishmania amazonensis was observed only for the rainy season essential oil (IC₅₀ value of 165.05 ± 33.26 μg mL^-1). A molecular docking study showed that alcohols exert a paramount efficacy and that the action of some essential oil compounds may be similar to that of amphotericin B. Still, only the essential oil from the dry season showed moderate antibacterial activity against S. sanguinis (MICs 200-400 μg mL^-1). The cytotoxicity against Vero cells was identical (>512) for both essential oils. The novel data here for both chemical characterization and biological activity, in particular, evidence that the action of these compounds is similar to that of amphotericin B, provide valuable information to the drug-discovery field.