Evaluation of antiparasitic activity of isolated metabolites from apolar fractions of Casearia sylvestris (Salicaceae) leaves extract

Abstract

Visceral leishmaniasis and Chagas disease, are important neglected diseases in underdeveloped and developing countries, caused by Leishmania sp and Trypanosoma cruzi respectively. The treatment against these two diseases has high toxicity, leading to the occurrence of serious adverse effects. That raises the need for research and development of new drugs, and natural products have great potential as a source of active compounds. This project consists in isolation of metabolites from hexanic fase fractions of methanolic extract from Casearia sylvestris Swarts leaves, a plant used in folk medicine, and evaluation of its activity against the Leishmania infantum and Trypanosoma cruzi, as well as its cytotoxicity. For this will be carried out in several steps of fractionation in column chromatography, thin layer chromatography, preparative chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography. Finally, the structures of the isolated active compounds will be elucidated by spectroscopic and spectrometric techniques.