Evaluation of the effect of Geoffroea decorticans fruit extracts on Xenopus laevis embryos

AYBAR, M. J.; TRÍBULO, C.; SOMAINI, GABRIELA CONSTANZA; VERA, N.

Tafí del Valle- Tucumán

Jornada; XXXIV Jornadas Científicas de la Asociación de Biología de Tucumán; 2017

Asociación de Biología de Tucumán

In recent years the study of natural compounds found in plants has gained importance. These compounds promise to be a huge source ofregulators of different signaling pathways such as wnt/β-catenin. Xenopus embryos are a very efficient model to analyze the role of thesecompounds. In this work fruits of Geoffroea decorticans were used to obtain an aqueous extract (EA) whose content of total phenoliccompounds determined by the Folin-Ciocalteu method was 3.24mg EAG/g and that of flavonoids 0.133mg EQ/g. An EA acid hydrolysiswas performed and a subsequent extraction with CHCl₃ and AcOEt, chloroform extract (EC) and ethyl acetate extract (EAc) beingobtained. Xenopus embryos were treated with different concentrations of the extracts from stage 3 to stage 10.5 and then allowed todevelop until stage 32. Treatments with EA (10, 20 and 30mg/mL), EC and EAc (1mg/mL) led to an abnormal development of 10, 47 and 84% of the embryos respectively with ventralized phenotypes. On the other hand, the wnt/β-catenin pathway was activated using LiCl,which produces dorsoanteriorized phenotypes. The embryos were incubated with EA until stage 6, treated with LiCl for 10 minutes, thenincubated again with EA until stage 10.5 and allowed to develop to stage 32. The observed phenotypes were classified according to thedorso-anterior index (DAI). A higher DAI indicates a higher rate of dorsoanteriorized embryos. Embryos treated with LiCl showedDAI=10 while embryos treated with LiCl and EA demonstrated a significant DAI decrease (DAI=6.09). These results showed thatGeoffroea decorticans extracts produce morphological phenotypes compatible with wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway inhibition.