Serjania triquetra Radlk. (Sapindaceae) is a liana-like climbing plant formed by brown bark vines, commonly known as “Palo de tres costillas”. In Mexican traditional medicine it is used to treat kidney diseases, urinary infection, inflammation, uterine hemorrhages and hepatitis [1,2]. Previous phytochemical studies of the aerial parts resulted in the isolation and characterization of stigmasterol, oleanolic acid, morolic acid and hederagenin, with a wide range of biological properties reported for these compounds [3]. In the current work a S. triquetra collected in Santiago Ixcuintla, Nayarit, México in november of 2017 was studied, preliminary phytochemical study allowed us to isolated ursolic acid as a major compound, and it was confirmed by UPLC-MS (Fig.1A).
To explore pharmacological activity, the vasorelaxnt effect of an ethanol extract from S. triquetra it was evaluated on aortic rat rings pre-contracted with noradrenaline 0.1µM. It was found to induce significant relaxant effect in a concentration-dependent manner, showing Emax: 81.6%± 4.6%, EC50 0.26± 0.04 µg/mL with endothelium; and Emax: 4.3 ± 1.1, EC50 > 100 µg/mL without endothelium respectively as shown in Fig.1-B. When aortic rings were denuded of endothelium, the relaxant effect was greatly reduced, these results endothelium-dependent suggest the participation of relaxing factors such as nitric oxide (NO), Endothelium -Derived Hyperpolarizing (EDHF), and prostacyclin (PGI2), as mediators. For the determination of the possible vasorelaxant mechanism exerted by S. triquetra its underlying functional mechanism of action should be explore. To our knowledge this is the first pharmacological report of the vasorelaxant effect of this plant.
References:
1 . Argueta Villamar A, Cano Asseleih LM, Rodarte ME. Atlas de las Plantas de la Medicina Tradicional Mexicana. I. 1994; 61–2.
2 . Rodríguez RH, Pinto AC. Rev Virtual Quim. 2014; 6(6):1583–606.
3 . Aguirre-Crespo F, Vergara-Galicia J, Villalobos-Molina R, López-Guerrero JJ, Navarrete-Vázquez G, Estrada-Soto S. Life Sci 2006;79:1062–8.