Chemical Evaluation And Anticholinesterasic Activity Of Lycopodium Species From South America.

E. L. KONRATH; B. N. MEDEIROS; M. G. ORTEGA; J. L. CABRERA; A. T. HENRIQUES

San Pedro, Brasil

Conferencia; 2nd Brazilian Conference on Natural Products (2nd BCNP); 2009

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative and progressive disease, caused by a dysfunction of cholinergic neurotransmission in the brain, which contributes to a salient cognitive decline, major characteristic for AD1. One of the most accepted strategies in AD treatment is the use of cholinesterase inhibitors. Their clinical efficacy is thought to result from prolonging the half-life of acetylcholine through inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE)2. Several plants of the Lycopodium and Huperzia genus are reported to be active in AChE inhibition3,4. As part of our continuing studies into discovery of new cholinesterase inhibitors from Lycopodiaceae5, we report here the results of chemical and pharmacological studies performed for 2 species collected in the province Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil): Lycopodium clavatum L. and Lycopodium thyoides Humb. & Bonpl. Ex Willd. Plants were dried and extracted, and the purified alkaloid extracts were analyzed using GC-MS. The anti-AChE assay was performed using erythrocyte membranes as source of enzyme, using fisostigmine as standard inhibitor. Preliminary studies showed that both species contain alkaloids belonging to lycopodine and lycodine classes, which differ quali and quantitatively. Moreover, L. clavatum seems to possess better inhibition on AChE than the alkaloid extract from L. thyoides.