Curatella americana L., commonly known as "lixeira" in Brazil, has been used in folk medicine to treat ulcers and inflammations. The purpose of the present work was to evaluate the cytotoxic and genotoxic potential of the ethanolic extract of C. americana stem bark using the prophage λ induction test (SOS inductest). To evaluate the cytotoxicity of this plant, after treatment with different concentrations of the extract, Escherichia coli WP2s(λ) cultures were diluted in M9 buffer, inoculated into LB plates, and incubated for 24 h at 37 °C. To assess genotoxicity, the lysogenic strain E. coli WP2s(λ) was treated with different concentrations of the extract. Then, the lysogenic strain was added to the indicator strain (RJF013), LB(1/2)(malt/amp), seeded into plates with the matches, and incubated for 24 h at 37 °C. After this period, the total number of colonies and the number of plaques were counted to evaluate C. americana cytotoxicity and genotoxicity, respectively. Our results showed that although the extract of "lixeira" did not modify the survival of bacteria (p > 0.05), it caused a significant increase in prophage λ induction, especially at the higher concentrations (p<0.05). Therefore, we conclude that the ethanolic extract of C. americana stem bark did not present cytotoxic effect, but some genotoxic potential was observed.
Curatella americana; Lixeira; Cytotoxicity; Genotoxicity; Lysogenic induction
