Passiflora species are well known for their common use in popular medicine for the treatment of several diseases, such as insomnia, anxiety, and hysteria, in addition to their anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, analgesic and antibacterial potential. However, few data about the chemical composition and the medicinal potential of in vitro derived materials are available. Therefore, the goal of this work was to compare, for the first time, the phytoconstituents of in vitro derived materials of four Passiflora species, and evaluate the antibacterial potential of their extracts against 20 Gram-positive and negative strains. Chromatographic analysis indicated the presence of saponins in roots extracts from all studied species, whereas leaf extracts presented both saponins and flavonoids. Extracts from leaves and roots of P. alata and P. foetida exhibited a selective inhibitory activity against B. thuringiensis and S. pyogenes, which might be related to the presence of a high concentration of secondary metabolites, including flavonoids and saponins.

Effect of different culture media and plant growth regulators for the optimization of callus induction of Annona mucosa (Jacq.). The Annona mucosa is a fruit tree of the Annonaceae family that produces a range of secondary metabolites of medicinal interest, such as lignans, acetogenins and alkaloids. The callus culture represents a renewable source of valuable medicinal compounds and controlled supply of material for biological and phytochemical studies. Therefore, this study was carried out to investigate the effects of three nutrient media, different concentrations of picloram and cytokinin types, in order to optimize the biomass yield and friability of calluses of A. mucosa. Leaf and hypocotyl segments from seedlings produced from in vivo seed germination were used as explants, which were inoculated in MS, WPM and B5 culture media supplemented with picloram (2-20µM) only or in addition to the cytokinins BAP, KIN or TDZ (0,2 -1μM ). Cultures were maintained at 26±2°C in the dark, with monthly subcultures. After 90 days, biomass production was evaluated. In all treatments, hypocotyl explants provided the highest percentage of callus formation, particularly in WPM. The association with TDZ produced highly proliferative friable callus, with no oxidation, reaching higher values than the previous works with this species. The results enable the use of the calluses produced in cell suspensions and the subsequent phytochemical characterization, in order to explore the in vitro production of metabolites of the species.