Avaliação in vitro dos efeitos genotóxicos e citotóxicos da droga antimalárica artesunato em linfócitos humanos

Abstract

Artesunate is one of the main drugs used as antimalarials in various countries. It is a semi-synthetic compound from artemisinin, a substance extracted from the Chinese plant Artemisia annua L. Despite the widespread use of antimalarial artesunato in malaria treatment, studies demonstrating its cytotoxic and genotoxic effects in human lymphocyte cultures are almost nonexistent. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated possible cytotoxic and genotoxic effects of artesunate on cultured human lymphocytes. A significant increase (p <0.05) in the rate of DNA damage and micronucleus frequency was observed after artesunato treatment. We also observed that artesunato induces a statically significant increase (p <0,05) in the number of apoptotic cells in both 24 and 48 h of treatment. Thus, we conclude in our work that artesunate is a highly cytotoxic and genotoxic drug in cultured human lymphocytes.