Thus, the appropriate extraction procedure preserves the chemical components such as gallic acid and catechin, and showed antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties.

The aim of this work was to evaluate the spectrophotometric methodology for determining the total flavonoid content (TFC) in herbal drug and derived products from Bauhinia monandra Kurz. Several analytical parameters from this method grounded on the complex formed between flavonoids and AlCl3 were evaluated such as herbal amount (0.25 to 1.25 g); solvent composition (ethanol 40 to 80%, v/v); as well as the reaction time and AlCl3 concentration (2 to 9%, w/v). The method was adjusted to aqueous extractives and its performance studied through precision, linearity and preliminary robustness. The results showed an important dependence of the method response from reaction time, AlCl3 concentration, sample amount, and solvent mixture. After choosing the optimized condition, the method was applied for the matrixes (herbal material and extractives), showing precision lower than 5% (for both parameters repeatability and intermediate precision), coefficient of determination higher than 0.99, and no important influence could be observed for slight variations from wavelength or AlCl3 concentration. Thus, it could be concluded that the evaluated analytical procedure was suitable to quantify the total flavonoid content in raw material and aqueous extractives from leaves of B. monandra.

The stem bark and pods of "jucá" are widely used in Brazilian folk medicine and, despite their therapeutic relevancies, there are insufficient reports about their quality control. Both herbal drugs from the species are rich in tannins, which showed a lot of biological and economic interest. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the method for quantification of tannins in the stem bark and pods from L. ferrea. The performance of the method was tested against the influence of the most relevant parameters (reaction time; amount of drug; type and amount of precipitationagents; and, concentration of the reagents). The procedure was validated according to the literature. After optimization, the experimental conditions were established as: 30 min of reaction; λ of 760 nm; 1.0 mL of Folin-Ciocalteu; 29% of Na2CO3 (w/v); and, skin powder as complexion agent. The method validation showed that the instrumental response was linear and sensitive to the investigated analyte. The method presented the necessary precision (RSD < 2.19%) and accuracy (96.84%-109.13%), as recommended by the official codex. Moreover, the deliberate introduction of experimental variations showed the stability of the procedure error against external sources (RSD < 2.42%). In conclusion, the data demonstrated the suitability of the method and can be used as anappropriate analytical tool for quality control of herbal drugs from L. ferrea.

The aim of this work was to find how medicinal plants play an important role as source of new bioactive molecules. To evaluate the antifungal activity of 10 medicinal plants from northeastern Brazil, traditionally used as anti-infective agents. The activity of 30 crude extracts (water; ethanol:water, 1:1; acetone:water, 1:1) against four standard species of Candida yeasts (Candida albicans ATCC 90028, Candida dubliniensis ATCC 7289, Candida glabrata ATCC 2001 and Candida krusei ATCC 6258) was investigated by the Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC), using the microdilution method and the working range used was from 1.95 to 1000 μg/mL. Extracts from leaves of Eugenia uniflora (Myrtaceae), stem bark of Caesalpinia ferrea (Caesalpinaceae) and leaves of Psidium guajava (Myrtaceae) showed significant activity against all yeasts evaluated. The best antifungal activities were achieved against C. glabrata and C. krusei by E. uniflora extract (MIC = 15.62) and followed by extracts from C. ferrea and P. guajava (MIC ranged from 15.62 to 250 µg/mL). E. uniflora also showed fungicidal properties against all yeasts, especially against Candida dubliniensis. This study identified plant species that may be candidates for the development of alternative treatments for candidiasis.