Avaliação do potencial antioxidante e citotóxico de um heparinoide isolado do Litopenaeus vannamei

Abstract

The development of an inflammatory response is essential to fight infections. However, the lack of control in this mechanism can leads to oxidative stress scenarios causing deleterious effects on the inflamed tissue. Accordingly, in addition to conventional anti-inflammatory therapy, an antioxidant therapy could also assist on fighting against damages due to oxidative stress. Many studies have reported the ability of sulfated polysaccharides, obtained from natural sources, in act as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents, without compromising the organism integrity. Therefore, this study aims was to verify the capacity of a heparinoid, isolated from the shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei, in act as antioxidant agent and whether it can offer cytotoxic risks to immune system cells. Thus, polysaccharides were extracted and purified through processes of delipidation, proteolysis, acetone fractionation and chromatography of ion exchange and gel filtration. The antioxidant activity was measured by the DPPH radical scavenging method. To analyze the heparinoid cytotoxic effect, cells from the lineage RAW 264.7 were used and its viability determined by MTT method after 48 hours incubation. The results after purification showed that the isolated polysaccharide shares structural similarities with heparin, for this reason called as “heparinoid”. Both heparinoid and heparin exhibited an antioxidant activity around 40% in all tested concentrations. In addition, both compounds were able to maintain cell viability in all concentrations. Although preliminary, the data obtained here regarding the heparinoid antioxidant capacity is an indicative that this compound can be able to fight deleterious effects from an uncontrolled inflammatory response.