Study of intestinal permeability of the major secondary metabolites present in the hydroalcoholic extract from the leaves of Lychnophora salicifolia using the human cell line Caco-2

Lychnophora salicifolia Mart. (Asteraceae, Vernonieae) is an endemic plant from the Brazilian Cerrado known as “arnicão”. It is popularly known to have anti-inflammatory and analgesic activities. Furthermore, the leaves of Lychnopora sp. are used as flavorings for the Brazilian traditional spirit “cachaça”. Because of the limited knowledge on the bioavailability of phytochemicals from plants used in Brazilian folk medicine, in this work, we studied the possible permeation in Caco-2 cells of the major components of hydroalcoholic extracts prepared from the leaves of L. salicifolia: vicenin-2 and lychnopholic acid. We observed that the C-glucoside vicenin-2 was not transported, suggesting no absorption and no efflux of this compound in this model. However, the sesquiterpen lychopholic acid crossed the Caco-2 cells monolayer by passive diffusion and might have high absorption rate in vivo.