Raul Oliveira de Souza

Evaluation of genotoxic and cytotoxic effects of hydroalcoholic extract of Euphorbia tirucalli (Euphorbiaceae) in cell cultures of human leukocytes

Euphorbia tirucalli (L.), commonly known as aveloz, has been indiscriminately used in popular medicine to treat various illnesses. However, some components can have devastating consequences. Injury to a cells genetic material can cause mutations, cancer, and cell death. Our main goal in this work was to evaluate the genotoxic and cytotoxic effects of E. tirucalli extract on human leukocytes. For this purpose, we performed a phytochemical analysis to evaluate the plants components. In the second step, we treated cultured human leukocytes with different concentrations of the dry extract of the plant and then evaluated the oxidative and genotoxic profiles of these leukocytes. We found that at 1% and 10% concentrations, the aveloz extract acted as a genotoxic agent that could damage DNA and increase oxidative damage. We conclude that despite its popular use, aveloz can act as a genotoxic agent, especially when it contains phorbol ester. Avelozs indiscriminate use might actually promote tumors and therefore carry a considerable genetic risk for its users.

In vitro and in silico toxicity evaluation of bioactive 4'-aminochalcone derivatives.

Abstract The 4′-aminochalcones compounds are open-chain flavonoids structures which have shown a known array of pharmacological activities, such as antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory and antitumor effects. There is little toxicological information available about these compounds in the literature. Therefore, the investigation of toxic effects of three 4′-aminochalcone derivatives was performed using in silico and in vitro assays. In silico provided results that indicated the occurrence of mutagenic and genotoxic effects. In vitro tests, using Cellular Proliferation and Viability, Micronucleus, and DNA damage by Comet assay, showed that the compounds studied also present mutagenic and genotoxic effects, which confirm the result determined by the in silico analysis. The use of experimental and computational models is complementary to each other and the results determined for 4′-aminochalones suggest that the chalcones should also be carefully considered since they show some risks to cause toxic effects to human cells.