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Resumo O objetivo desse estudo foi caracterizar a morfologia polínica das espécies de Grewioideae ocorrentes no estado do Rio de Janeiro. Grãos de pólen de 12 espécies foram examinados: tribo Apeibeae (Apeiba tibourbou, Corchorus hirsutus, Triumfetta althaeoides, T. grandiflora, T. obscura, T. rhomboidea) e tribo Grewieae (Luehea candicans, L. conwentzii, L. divaricata, L. grandiflora, L. ochrophylla, L. paniculata). Os grãos de pólen foram acetolisados, medidos, descritos e ilustrados sob microscopia de luz (ML). Para observar detalhes da superfície e abertura, grãos de pólen não acetolisados foram analisados em microscópio eletrônico de varredura (MEV) e, posteriormente, eletromicrografados. Foram caracterizados os grãos de pólen quanto à forma, ao tamanho, ao tipo de abertura, à polaridade e à constituição da exina. As espécies analisadas possuem grãos de pólen médios a grandes, isopolares, peroblatos a prolatos, 3-cólporos e sexina reticulada. Na chave polínica, a maioria das espécies pôde ser separada pelos atributos palinológicos. Isso permite considerar que as espécies aqui estudadas são euripolinícas, uma vez que é possível reconhecer a maioria das espécies pelas características palinológicas. Acredita-se que, o presente estudo fornece dados polínicos que podem auxiliar na identificação das espécies de Grewioideae que ocorrem no estado do Rio de Janeiro.

Propolis is a natural product widely used for humans. Due to its complex composition, a number of applications (antimicrobial, antiinflammatory, anesthetic, cytostatic and antioxidant) have been attributed to this substance. Using Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a eukaryotic model we investigated the mechanisms underlying the antioxidant effect of propolis from Guarapari against oxidative stress. Submitting a wild type (BY4741) and antioxidant deficient strains (ctt1∆, sod1∆, gsh1∆, gtt1∆ and gtt2∆) either to 15 mM menadione or to 2 mM hydrogen peroxide during 60 min, we observed that all strains, except the mutant sod1∆, acquired tolerance when previously treated with 25 µg/mL of alcoholic propolis extract. Such a treatment reduced the levels of ROS generation and of lipid peroxidation, after oxidative stress. The increase in Cu/Zn-Sod activity by propolis suggests that the protection might be acting synergistically with Cu/Zn-Sod.

The ethanolic extracts of two Brazilian propolis samples were submitted to a fractionation procedure based on the pKa values of their components. The fractions obtained were evaluated for their antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus as well as for their antioxidant properties (reduction of DPPH radical). Their phenolic and flavonoid contents were measured spectrophotometrically, in order to establish the correlations between these contents and the measured activities. Further, the most active fractions of both extracts were analyzed by HRGC-MS and about twenty compounds could be characterized. Among them were 3-prenyl-4-hydroxycinnamic acid (drupanin) and 3,5-diprenyl-4-hydroxycinnamic acid (artepillin C), which seem to be the major antioxidant components of the bioactive fractions.