Antiviral activity of the crude n-hexane extract from leaves of Piper lepturum var. angustifolium (C.DC.) Yunck. (Piperaceae)

Abstract

Flaviane Gomes Pereira, Paulo Roberto Dias dos Santos, Elsie Franklin Guimarães, Maria Teresa Villela Romanos, Maria Auxiliadora Coelho Kaplan and Davyson de Lima Moreira

Piper lepturum var. angustifolium (C.DC.) Yunck. belongs to the family Piperaceae which is widely found from North to South of Brazil. Crude n-hexane extract from leaves of P. lepturum var. angustifolium was assayed to anti-herpes simplex viruses (HSV) activity against HSV-1 and HSV-2 in cell cultures, incubated at 37°C for 48 h in a 5% CO2 atmosphere. Chemical profile of the extract was performed in a Shimadzu high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector-ultraviolet (HPLC-DAD-UV), using a RP-18 column and mobile phase in gradient of acetonitrile and acid deionized water (pH = 3.0), at a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min. The HPLC analyses showed signals characteristics of non-polar compounds, mainly distributed between 50 and 70 min. UV spectra of the three main compounds (50.3% of the mixture) suggested isomers, with only one ʎmax at 235 nm. The crude n-hexanic extract showed 94.4% inhibition to HSV-1 with ED50 value of 5.2 µg/ml and selective index superior to 38.4. Considering HSV-2, the extract promoted 92.7% of inhibition with ED50 value of 1.1 µg/ml and selectivity index (SI) superior to 181.8. These results point out this species of Piperaceae as a source of active compounds for the treatment of infections caused by herpes simplex virus.