Gochnatia polymorpha: macro-and microscopic identification of leaf and stem for pharmacognostic quality control

Gochnatia polymorpha: macro- and microscopic identification of leaf and stem for pharmacognostic quality control Juliana Youssef,1 Patrícia M. Döll-Boscardin,*,2 Paulo V. Farago,2 Márcia R. Duarte,3 Jane M. Budel2 Laboratório de Farmacognosia, Faculdades Integradas do Brasil, Brazil, Departamento de Ciências Farmacêuticas, Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa, Brazil, 3 Departamento de Farmácia, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil. 1 Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia Brazilian Journal of Pharmacognosy 23(4): 585-591, Jul./Aug. 2013 Article 2 Abstract: Gochnatia polymorpha (Less.) Cabrera, Asteraceae, is popularly known as cambará and cambara-de-folha-grande in Brazil. It is used in traditional medicine to treat respiratory and gastrointestinal disorders. Pharmacological studies revealed antiinflammatory, antispasmodic, antibacterial and antiviral activities. The goal of this paper was to carry out morphological and anatomical studies in order to describe the aerial parts of G. polymorpha. The botanical material was collected, fixed, and prepared according to usual light and scanning electron microtechniques. The leaves are simple, oblong-lanceolate to elliptical-lanceolate in form with mucronate acute apex, rounded base, entire or slightly toothed margin, and short petiole. In transection, the epidermis is uniseriate along the leaf blade. A subepidermal layer next to the adaxial side is present. Anomocytic stomata are seen only on the abaxial surface. Capitate glandular trichomes and T-shaped non-glandular trichomes occur on the leaves. The mesophyll is dorsiventral and minor collateral vascular bundles are enclosed by a sheath of thickwalled parenchymatic cells. The midrib is biconvex and the petiole has a circular shape. The epidermis of the stem consists of a single layer of cells with glandular and nonglandular trichomes. The vascular cylinder shows typical structure and perivascular fiber caps are next to the phloem. Introduction Gochnatia Kunth belongs to Asteraceae and shows about seventy species occurring in America from Mexico to Argentina and in Asia. This genus consists of trees or shrubs that particularly grow in Brazil where there are 22 species distributed in Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, São Paulo, Goiás, Minas Gerais, Bahia, and Ceará (Freire et al., 2002). Chemical studies have reported the presence of sesquiterpenes lactones, diterpenes, triterpenes, flavonoids, coumarins, and essential oil in species of Gochnatia (Catalan et al., 1996; Silva et al., 2011). Gochnatia polymorpha (Less.) Cabrera is a representative of Mutisieae and is popularly known as cambará (Rossato & Kolb, 2010) and cambará-de-folhagrande (Lorenzi, 2002) in Brazil. It is a medium sized tree (Schlemper et al, 2011) with a twisted and branched trunk of sympodial growth. It can reach 10 m in high (Lorenzi, 2002) and is distributed in the regions of neotropical savanna, mainly in Southeastern Brazil (Lorenzi, 2002; Rossato & Kolb, 2010). Received 3 May 2013 Accepted 10 Jul 2013 Available online 9 Aug 2013 Keywords: Asteraceae Gochnatia polymorpha medicinal plant morpho-anatomy ISSN 0102-695X DOI: 10.1590/S0102-695X2013005000054 It has been used in folk medicine for treating respiratory problems such as colds and coughs and for avoiding gastrointestinal diseases (Alice et al., 1995; Mors et al., 2000; Stefanello et al., 2006b; Schlemper et al., 2011). Pharmacological studies have demonstrated that G. polymorpha showed anti-inflammatory (Moreira et al., 2000), antimutagenic (Horn & Vargas, 2008), antispasmodic (Schlemper et al., 2011), and antimicrobial activities (Stefanello et al., 2006b). Various terpene compounds were isolated from flowers of G. polymorpha such as: lupeol, lupeol acetate, lupeol palmitate, taraxasterol, taraxasteryl acetate, pseudotaraxasterol, pseudotaraxasterol acetate, α-amyrin, α-amyril palmitate, β-amyrin, and β-amyril palmitate (Silva et al., 2011). The essential oil from flowers showed (E)-nerolidol, eugenol, and phenylacetaldehyde as major constituents while the volatile oil from roots presented a higher content of β-bisabolene and bisabolol (Stefanello et al., 2006a). Two ent-kaurenediterpenes were also isolated from the aerial parts of G. polymorpha (Sacilotto et al., 1997). An accurate identification of the investigated 585 Gochnatia polymorpha: macro- and microscopic identification of leaf and stem for pharmacognostic quality control Juliana Youssef et al. species is remarkable required for pharmacognostic purposes. In that sense, morpho-anatomical studies are essential tools to provide low cost and reliable data. In general, medicinal plants are mainly sold as fragments or powders and morpho-anatomical descriptions can be used as the first parameters for their quality control. Considering the lack of available data on the morphology and anatomy of G. polymorpha, the goal of the present work was to carry out the macro- and microscopic identification of its aerial parts as a contribution to the pharmacognostic studies involving Gochnatia. Materials and Methods The aerial parts of Gochnatia polymorpha (Less.) Cabrera, Asteraceae, were collected in São Maximiano Farm located in Guaíba, Rio Grande do Sul (30° 10' S and 51° 20' W, 27 m high), in December 2010. The species was identified by the voucher ICN 996231 lodged at the herbarium from the Instituto de Ciências Naturais at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. The plant material was fixed in FAA 70 (Johansen, 1940) and kept in 70% ethanol solution (v/v) (Berlyn & Miksch, 1976). This material was sectioned by hand or using rotary microtome to obtain semipermanent and permanent slides for microscopic studies, respectively. Transverse and longitudinal sections were stained either with toluidine blue (O’Brien et al., 1964) or astra blue and basic fuchsine (Roeser, 1972). For microchemical tests, transections of the previously fixed material were prepared by freehand. The following standard solutions were used for microchemical Figure 1. Gochnatia polymorpha (Less.) Cabrera, Asteraceae. A. General aspect; B. Aspect of aerial parts; C. Numerous trichomes on the abaxial side; D. Transection of the leaf blade showing capitate glandular trichome (gt), epidermis (ep), cuticle (cu), subepidermal layer (sep), palisade parenchyma (pp), bundle sheath extension (ebs). Bars = 15 cm (A), 5 cm (B), 20 µm (D). 586 Rev. Bras. Farmacogn. Braz. J. Pharmacogn. 23(4): Jul./Aug. 2013 Gochnatia polymorpha: macro- and microscopic identification of leaf and stem for pharmacognostic quality control Juliana Youssef et al. tests: hydrochloric phloroglucin for lignified elements (Foster, 1949), Sudan III for lipophilic compounds (Sass, 1951), ferric chloride for phenolic substances (Johansen, 1940), and lugol to detect starch (Berlyn & Miksch, 1976). Photos were taken using light microscope with different magnifications. For the analysis of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) (Souza, 1998), the samples wer (...truncated)