ANÁLISE EXPLORATÓRIA DE PLANTAS DO GÊNERO Bauhinia POR IMPRESSÃO DIGITAL ESPECTROSCÓPICA E ESPECTROMÉTRICA

Abstract

Leaves of some plants of the genus Bauhinia are popular known as “pata-de-vaca”. These are used in folk medicine as diuretic, hypoglycemic, against hypertension and analgesic. The plants of genus Bauhinia belongs to Fabaceae family and Caesalpiniaceae subfamily, encompassing about 300 species widespread in the tropical zones. In Brazil, it can be found in south and southeast region as a shrub or tree that grows 10 m tall. There are many research about the pharmacological activity, as well as, investigations of chemical profile of some species of this genus, however, studies about applications of multivariate tools to classification of market and in natura samples are scarce in literature. Therefore, the main purpose to this study was compare and classifies different samples of plants of Bauhinia genus as the type, source and species. For this, was held the study of metabolomics profile of metanolic extracts, acquired from the leaves of market and collected in natura cow’s foot, by spectroscopic (UV-VIS and FTIR) and spectrometric (ESI-(-)-MS) techniques. Identification of some compounds was performed by high performance liquid chromatography couple with mass spectrometry with electrospray ionization (LC-MS/MS). The antiradical and antimicrobial property was analyzed to better understand the pharmacological property of the plants of Bauhinia genus. To discriminate and identify the different samples of “pata-de-vaca”, were used chemometric tools, in particular, the principal component analysis (PCA) that was applied for each data set. The PCA was able to discriminate the samples about the type (market or in natura), source region and species of the plant. This analysis also suggested that in the market sample there is a mixture of the plants of this genus being sold. Therefore, PCA is a tool that can help in the authentication of market sample and on traceability of in natura sample, besides helping in taxonomic classification of the different species of this genus. Evaluation of pharmalogical properties of these plants demonstrated high antiradical potential against stable radical DPPH•, as well as, an excellent antimicrobial activity against Gram-postive (E. faecalis and S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli and P. aeruginosa) bacterial. The commercial samples of these plants demonstrated worst pharmalogical properties when compared with those collect in natura, fact that can be related with the degradation of pharmacologically active compounds, due to factors such as shelf life and manipulation of plant over the production process. Thus, the plants of this genus may be considered as functional foods, as well as precursors for new herbal medicines.