Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge Vol 18(2), April 2019, pp 281-289 Antioxidant, antimicrobial and immunostimulant properties of saline extract from Caesalpinia pulcherrima (L.) Swartz (Fabaceae) leaves Lethícia Maria de Souza Aguiar 1 , Dayane Kelly Dias do Nascimento 1 , Bárbara de Azevedo Ramos 2 , Maiara Celine de Moura 2 , Luana Cassandra Breitenbach Barroso Coelho 2 ,Thiago Henrique Napoleão 2 , Maria Tereza dos Santos Correia 2 , Iranildo José da Cruz Filho 1 , Ana Maria Souto Maior 1 , Túlio Diego da Silva 3 , Cláudia Sampaio de Andrade Lima 4 , Virgínia Maria Barros de Lorena 5 & Cristiane Moutinho Lagos de Melo* ,1,+ 1 Department of Antibiotics, Biosciences Centre, Federal University of Pernambuco, Pernambuco, Brazil 50740 525 2 Department of Biochemistry, Biosciences Centre, Federal University of Pernambuco, Pernambuco, Brazil 50740 525 3 Center for Strategic Technologies of the Northeast, Pernambuco, Brazil 50740 525 4 Department of Biophysics, Biosciences Centre, Federal University of Pernambuco, Pernambuco, Brazil 50740 525 5 Aggeu Magalhães Research Centre, FIOCRUZ/PE, Pernambuco, Brazil 50740 525 E-mail: + cristianemout@gmail.com Received 23 April 2018; revised 19 February 2019 Caesalpinia pulcherrima (L.) Swartz is a species that originates in India and Central America and is widely distributed in the world. This plant presents important biological properties, due to the presence of some secondary medicinal metabolites, such as tannins, glycosides, flavonoids and diterpenes. In folk medicine, C. pulcherrima is used in different diseases as bronchitis, asthma, infections, wounds and eye irritations. The aim of this study was to perform a phytochemical screening and evaluate which biological properties the saline extract of leaves from C. pulcherrima have against microorganisms and animal cells. Results showed that 15 majority compounds could be found in saline extract distributed among phenol, coumarin and quercetin groups.Saline extract of leaves from C. pulcherrima also showed good results in antioxidant test and showed significant antifungal property against Candida strains. Moreover, the saline extract did not showed cytotoxicity against mice splenocytes and promoted proliferation in these cells. These results may be predictive for future studies using the saline extract from C. pulcherrima leaves as cell stimulant agent in a pharmaceutical phytotherapic formulation used in cicatricial and in vitro immunostimulant assays. Keywords: Antifungal, Antioxidant, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Cell stimulation, Extract IPC Code: Int. Cl. 19 : A61K 38/00, A61K 38/00, A61K 31/352, A61N 1/362, A23L 31/15 The use of medicinal plants by the population has been reported by literature over many years¹ - ³. These plants are considered an alternative means used by communities for the relief of symptoms and cure of diseases inside of alternative medicine 2-5 . Caesalpinia pulcherrima (Linn) Swartz belongs to the Fabaceae family, Caesalpinioideae subfamily and Caesalpinia genus 6-8 . This species is found in India 9 , Central America 9,10 , tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, Australia, America and the Caribbean 11 . It is also commonly found in Brazil, popularly known as flamboyan or cheap beard, being widely used as an ornamental plant due to flowers with yellow, red or orange colors. According to Figueiredo and Sáber, 2016 and Kumbhare et al, 2012 9,12 , Caesalpinia pulcherrima also has medicinal uses. In popular medicine, leaves, pods, flowers and bark are commonly used in the treatment of different diseases as rheumatism, ulcers 13 , fevers, infections, wounds, eye irritations 14 bronchitis, asthma and tumors 8,15,16 . Specifically, in China it is used as tonic that stimulates blood flow and its bark is used as an abortifacient 17 , as in India, its dried seeds are treated as abortifacient by the population. 18 Other properties such as anticonvulsant 7 and antioxidant 19 were also reported for this species. Here we performed assays with the saline extract from Caesalpinia pulcherrima leaves aiming to investigate its phytochemical composition, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities and discover if this extract is dangerous to mice spleen cells in vitro. Material and methods Botanical material collection and extract preparation Leaves from Caesalpinia pulcherrima (L.) Swartz were collected in Federal University of Pernambuco - ————— *Corresponding author brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by NOPR