Cicera Thainá Gonçalves da Silva

Himatanthus drasticus is a plant widely used for the treatment of various diseases such as ulcer, cancer, scarring, worms, inflammation in general, among other diseases. Due to its wide use, this species is widely used in biological and pharmacological assays. Thus, this work aims to carry out a literature review of the aforementioned species, highlighting its ethnopharmacology, phytochemistry, and biological activities. The keyword “Himatanthus drasticus” and its synonyms “Plumeria drastica”, “Himatanthus fallax” and “Plumeria fallax” were used through the Boolean operator “OR” as main indexes for searching in the following platforms PubMed, PubMed Central, SciElo, Scopus and Web of Science. Articles published in English and Portuguese in the last 15 years (2006-2021) were considered. Studies demonstrate that H. drasticus has studies that show a variety of relevant pharmacological activities. Among the most studied organs of H. drastiscus, the leaves stand out, which have several chemical constituents present, such as phenolic compounds, among them quercetin, quercetin 3-latyroside, isoquercetrin, rutin, among others. The biotechnological potential of H. drasticus is remarkable, with latex being the main product, thus corroborating the traditional therapy. Phytochemically, this species presents iridoids, belonging to the terpene class. Which may be responsible for the biological and pharmacological activities observed in this review. Studies about the conservation of this species are necessary, since it suffers anthropic pressure through its extractivism.

Combretum leprosum is a plant species with wide distribution in Brazil known as “mofumbo”, standing out in studies associated with its pharmacological and ethnobotanical activity. The medicinal applications of the species are widely reported in the literature, using the bark, leaves and flowers as healing agents. Given the economic, pharmacological and ecological importance, this work aimed to present a systematic review of production, conservation status and knowledge about the species in different fields of knowledge. The literature review was based on seven categories, characterized according to the study area: biological and/or pharmacological activity (32 articles), importance of conservation status (29), botanical aspects (18), phytochemistry (9), geographic distribution (8), foraging (5) and ethnobotanical uses (2). Most of the works address biological and/or pharmacological activity of the species, and its application is focused on antitumor action, treatment against Chagas disease, antinociceptive behavior, antibacterial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antiproliferative action. Among the compounds isolated from C. leprosum with different applications, 3β-6β-16β-trihydroxylup-20(29)-ene stands out, a lupane triterpene isolated from different parts of the plant, associated with different medicinal and therapeutic applications. The species was highlighted in works associated with environmental regeneration, being resistant to different phytophysiognomies and showing tolerance to environments contaminated by heavy metals, being able to represent an important species in reforestation programs and recovery of degraded environments. However, even with the growing number of studies associated with C. leprosum in recent years, the species does not have an assessment regarding its degree of threat, demonstrating the need for research associated with the species and the possible impacts that its representatives may suffer, helping in sustainable development and conservation programs.