Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: EDNALDO JOSE DA SILVA

Biotechnological potential of lectins extracted from four species of the Fabaceae family occurring in the Pernambuco Caatinga

proteins; vegetable; immunomodulators; antimicrobials; semi-arid.

The World Health Organization warns about the concerning threat that infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance phenomenon represent to humanity, as infectious diseases are among the 10 leading causes of death and the phenomenon of antimicrobial resistance has made the treatment of patients increasingly difficult. Several studies have isolated lectins (proteins that bind specifically and reversibly to carbohydrates) from plant species and have shown the antimicrobial and biotechnological potential of these proteins. Thus, this work aimed to propose an ointment with antimicrobial action made of lectins isolated from Fabaceae species occurring in the Caatinga of Pernambuco. Therefore, the results of this work are presented in two manuscripts: The first one is a
prospective study of lectins as antimicrobial and antiviral agents that was carried out from patents published between 01.01.2000 and 02.18.2022 on Espacenet and Patentscope. This manuscript is submitted to the journal Heliyon and shows that public institutions were the main patent applicants, and China and the United States being the main markets and sources of technological knowledge in this area respectively. The patents protected mainly the application of plant lectins in products to combat infectious diseases by exploiting three distinct biological activities of lectins: direct antimicrobial and/or antiviral action, adhesive or immunomodulatory actions. Private companies were more interested in protecting products that explored the immunomodulatory action of lectins against viral agents. And the second manuscript is under development and will address the other stages of this work. For performing the next steps, the botanical material of Hymenaea martiana, Diplotropis ferruginea, Bowdichia virgilioides and Pterocarpus rohrii has been collected in the ecological reserve of Vale do Catimbau (Buíque/PE) and the lectins will be isolated by affinity chromatography from crude extracts of plant samples. Then, they will be evaluated as antimicrobial agents by determining the minimum inhibitory and bactericidal/fungicide concentrations against microorganisms of medical interest and inhibition of bacterial biofilm formation by exposing it to different concentrations of lectins in microplates. From the obtained data,
we intend to prepare an ointment from the Lainetti base, suggest it as an alternative therapeutic agent and present new lectins as biotechnological tools.