ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITIES OF LATEX OF Jatropha multifida L .: in vitro study.
Jatropha multifida, Antioxidant Activity, Antimicrobial Activity
Jatropha multifida or Adenoropium multifidum (synonym), popularly known as Coral Plant, Coral, Coral Flower, Blood Flower, Balsam, Mertiolate. It is a shrub, whose red flowers with yellowish anthers, look like small pieces of coral, stem with the presence of latex. Widely used in folk medicine, as a purgative, against gonorrhea, diuretics, healing and anti-inflammatory. The objective of this research was to verify the antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of fresh and freeze-dried latex from J. multifida. Latex was collected in the municipality of Igreja Nova / AL. To evaluate the scavenging capacity of free radicals, the method of measuring the reduction of the synthetic radical 2,2-diphenyl1-picryl-hydrazil (DPPH) was used. For the antimicrobial activity, the broth microdilution method was used, which determined the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) and the Agar diffusion method to identify the Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (CBM) of the extracts, against the microorganisms S. aureus (ATCC 25923), S. epidermidis (ATCC 31488), E. faecalis (ATCC 29212), P. aeruginosa (ATCC 27853), E. coli (ATCC 25922), E. aerogenes (ATCC 13048) and C. albicans (ATCC 24433) . The results up to this stage of the research demonstrate that the latex of J. multifida can be considered a potential antimicrobial and antioxidant agent. The research presented here is still under construction, with the next steps being to evaluate the antioxidant activity of lyophilized latex and phytochemical prospecting to identify classes of chemical constituents present in fresh and lyophilized latex.