Research Article Inhibitory Effect of Plant Manilkara subsericea against Biological Activities of Lachesis muta Snake Venom Eduardo Coriolano De Oliveira, 1 Caio Pinho Fernandes, 2,3 Eladio Flores Sanchez, 4 Leandro Rocha, 2,3 and André Lopes Fuly 1 1 Laborat´ orio de Venenos e Toxinas de Animais e Avaliac ¸˜ ao de Inibidores, Departamento de Biologia Celular e Molecular, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Outeiro de S˜ ao Jo˜ ao Batista, 3º andar, Sala 310, 24020-141 Niter´ oi, RJ, Brazil 2 Programa de P´ os-Graduac ¸˜ ao em Ciˆ encias Aplicadas a Produtos para a Sa´ ude, Faculdade de Farm´ acia, Universidade Federal Fluminense, 24220-900 Niter´ oi, RJ, Brazil 3 Programa de P´ os-Graduac ¸˜ ao em Biotecnologia Vegetal, Centro de Ciˆ encias da Sa´ ude, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 21941-599 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil 4 Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento, Fundac ¸˜ ao Ezequiel Dias, 30510-010 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil Correspondence should be addressed to Andr´ e Lopes Fuly; andfuly@vm.uf.br Received 28 August 2013; Revised 9 December 2013; Accepted 10 December 2013; Published 8 January 2014 Academic Editor: Leonardo A. Calderon Copyright © 2014 Eduardo Coriolano De Oliveira et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Snake venom is composed of a mixture of substances that caused in victims a variety of pathophysiological efects. Besides antivenom, literature has described plants able to inhibit injuries and lethal activities induced by snake venoms. his work describes the inhibitory potential of ethanol, hexane, ethyl acetate, or dichloromethane extracts and fractions from stem and leaves of Manilkara subsericea against in vivo (hemorrhagic and edema) and in vitro (clotting, hemolysis, and proteolysis) activities caused by Lachesis muta venom. All the tested activities were totally or at least partially reduced by M. subsericea. However, when L. muta venom was injected into mice 15 min irst or ater the materials, hemorrhage and edema were not inhibited. hus, M. subsericea could be used as antivenom in snakebites of L. muta. And, this work also highlights Brazilian lora as a rich source of molecules with antivenom properties. 1. Introduction Snakebites are a public health problem that afects mainly poor people who live in rural areas of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania [1, 2]. According to World Health Organization, it is estimated that up to ive million people are bitten by snakes every year, and of these, 100,000 deaths occur annually, with 400,000 amputations and other severe health consequences (such as infection, tetanus, and scarring). Poor access to health care and scarcity of antivenoms increase the severity of the injuries and their outcomes. Snake venoms are a complex mixture of proteins, including metallopro- teinase, serine protease, phospholipase A 2 , disintegrins, C- type lectins, myotoxins, and others [3, 4]. Lachesis muta (Bushmaster) is the longest venomous snake in the Americas and is distributed in the equatorial forests east of the Andes, ranging from eastern Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, northern Bolivia, and eastern and northern Venezuela, to Guyana, French Guyana, Surinam, and northern Brazil. Within their range, they are oten abundant and are an important cause of snakebites [5]. L. muta snakebites are mainly characterized by systemic (generalized bleeding, coagulopathy, renal failure, and shock) and local efects (pain, hemorrhage, edema, and necrosis) [6, 7]. In South America, B. jararaca has a higher incidence of accidents (95%) than L. muta (2%), but, on the other hand, L. muta bites led to more severe symptoms (listed above) and have lethality indexes three times higher than B. jararaca [8]. hus, reducing these indexes is necessary and must be fast. Although antivenoms are efective against systemic efe- cts, they do not inhibit the local efects. And, a few countries produce antivenom of adequate quality as well. Moreover, Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2014, Article ID 408068, 7 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/408068