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Plants are promising sources of new bioactive compounds. The aim of this study was to investigate the cytotoxic potential of nine plants found in Brazil. The species studied were: Annona pickelii Diels (Annonaceae), Annona salzmannii A. DC. (Annonaceae), Guatteria blepharophylla Mart. (Annonaceae), Guatteria hispida (R. E. Fr.) Erkens & Maas (Annonaceae), Hancornia speciosa Gomes (Apocynaceae), Jatropha curcas L. (Euphorbiaceae), Kielmeyera rugosa Choisy (Clusiaceae), Lippia gracilis Schauer (Verbenaceae), and Hyptis calida Mart. Ex Benth (Lamiaceae). Different types of extractions from several parts of plants resulted in 43 extracts. Their cytotoxicity was tested against HCT-8 (colon carcinoma), MDA-MB-435 (melanoma), SF-295 (glioblastoma), and HL-60 (promielocitic leukemia) human tumor cell lines, using the thiazolyl blue test (MTT) assay. The active extracts were those obtained from G. blepharophylla, G. hispida, J. curcas, K. rugosa, and L. gracilis. In addition, seven compounds isolated from the active extracts were tested; among them, β-pinene found in G. hispida and one coumarin isolated from K. rugora showed weak cytotoxic activity. In summary, this manuscript contributes to the understanding of the potentialities of Brazilian plants as sources of new anticancer drugs.

The effects of the application of an acoustically assisted treatment on the vitamins (C, B, B, B, and B), the antioxidant activity (DPPH, FRAP), the polyphenol and flavonoid contents, the organic acid contents (citric and malic) and drying kinetics of pineapple (Ananas comosus var. Perola) have been studied. Treatments were carried out using two different soaking media: distilled water and pineapple juice at 30°C during 10, 20 and 30min without and with acoustic assistance (23.2W/L). After treatment, samples were dried at 60°C and 0.5m/s during 8h. The quality parameters were determined in untreated, treated, and treated-dried samples. The acoustic assistance promoted an increment of vitamins B, B, B and B, total flavonoid and malic acid contents, and a reduction of vitamin C, total polyphenol content, antioxidant activity and citric acid content in treated samples. However, in all treated-dried samples the final content of those quality parameters was higher than the observed in the untreated dried sample.

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