BIOLOGICAL-ACTIVITIES AND METABOLITES FROM TREVOA-TRINERVIS MIERS

Chilean folklore medicine uses Trevoa trinervis Miers. (Rhamnaceae), ' trevo', for the treatment of inflammation caused hy wounds and burns. The antiinflammatory and antipyretic activities of crude methanol, aqu eous and successive hexane, dichloromethane, methanol extracts of the aerial part were studied. The fractionation of the most potent extract (dichloromethane), led to the isolation of the pentacyclic triterpeno ids betulinic (the major metabolite), oleanolic and ursolic acids, alo ng with beta-sitosterol. Evaluation of the acute oral toxicity of the crude methanol extract showed it to be nontoxic. The crude methanol an d the aqueous extracts were assayed for their antineoplastic activity against P-388 murine leukaemia, A-549 human lung carcinoma sand HT-29 colon carcinoma showing no activity. Betulinic acid was also assayed s howing some activity against the neoplastic cell lines, but only resid ual activity against Mel-28 melanona cells. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons , Ltd.