Potencial efeito hipolipidêmico da entrecasca da Cedrela odorata L.

Abstract

The Cedrela odorata is a medicinal plant widely used by the population for the treatment of various symptoms and showed a potential hypolipidemic effect in rats induced to diabetes and was able to reduce the levels of triacylglycerol (TAG) in rats induced to hyperlipidemia with ethanol. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate: i) the potential hypolipidemic effect of the hydroethanolic extract of Cedrela odorata bark (EHCo) in other hyperlipidemic models; ii) antioxidant effect of EHCo in an ethanol-induced hyperlipidemia model; and iii) the effect of crude extract fractions on the activity of fatty acid synthesis enzymes in the liver. For this, male Wistar rats weighing between 180-200 grams were used, divided into 4 experimental groups: 1) Control Group (C) – animals not induced to hyperlipidemia and receiving water as treatment; 2) Hyperlipidemic group (Hl ) – animals induced to hyperlipidemia and that received water as treatment; 3) Hyperlipidemic group treated with EHCo at a dose of 500 mg.kg-1 (HlCo) - animals induced to hyperlipidemia and which received HECo as treatment and 4) Hyperlipidemic group treated with fenofibrate at a dose of 200 mg.Kg-1 (HlFen) – animals induced to hyperlipidemia and that received the drug fenofibrate as treatment. To obtain the fractions, the crude extract was partitioned by liquid/liquid separation with hexane, chloroform, dichloromethane and ethyl acetate. The effect of fractions on enzymes was evaluated in vitro using liver slices. Data are expressed as mean ± EMP (student's t - C vs Hl and one way ANOVA - Hl vs HlCo vs HlFen; P ≤ 0.05). We observed that EHCo was able to reduce TAG levels by 56.5% only in the hyperlipidemia induction model with a high-fat diet. EHCo did not show a potential antioxidant effect in the experiments performed in the evaluated experimental model. About the in vitro activity of ATP-citrate lyase, the extract, the ethyl acetate and dichloromethane fractions were tested. In addition, despite the results not being presented in a dose-dependent way, concentrations of the extract and of the ethyl acetate fraction reduced the activity of the enzyme. On the activity of glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase, we observed a lower activity with the extract at concentrations of 1000, 500 and 250 µg.mL-1 . In the ethyl acetate fraction, the enzyme activity was lower only at the concentration of 1000 µg.mL-1 . Our findings confirm the hypolipidemic effect of EHCo, indicating that the compounds responsible for decreasing the activity of enzymes participating in de novo fatty acid synthesis in the liver are, at least, in the ethyl acetate fraction.