Araçá is a native Brazil fruit, and has two morphological types, yellow and red; however, it is still little consumed by the population. Although there are few studies on the araçá fruit, some phytochemical propriety benefits have been described for this plant, such as antioxidant effects. To explore the benefits of araçá fruit, the physicochemical characteristics and in vitro toxicological effects of red and yellow araçá fruit were evaluated. In this work, the toxicity of araçá extracts in NIH/3T3 cell lines, the antiproliferative effects in cancer cell lines (C6, HT-29, and DU149), and the overall antifungal effects were evaluated. The irritant potential of araçá extracts was assessed by the HET-CAM test. The results demonstrated that the fruits are rich in fiber content and showed high phenols content. In addition, the araçá extracts had no present toxicity effects in cell lines; however, the red araçá extracts showed antiproliferative effects in HT-29 cancer cells at 50 mg/mL. The antifungal effects of araçá extract were promising in 23 isolates of Candida spp., and both araçá extracts showed no irritant effects. Therefore, this study demonstrated that red and yellow araçá fruit extract has promising biological and pharmacological effects that should be further explored.
Keywords: Brazilian native fruit; antifungal activity; cancer cell lines; toxicity.