Scientific Reports (Mar 2021)

Bioprospecting of Sechium spp. varieties for the selection of characters with pharmacological activity

  • María Isabel Iñiguez-Luna,
  • Jorge Cadena-Iñiguez,
  • Ramón Marcos Soto-Hernández,
  • Francisco Javier Morales-Flores,
  • Moisés Cortes-Cruz,
  • Kazuo N. Watanabe,
  • Ryoko Machida-Hirano,
  • Jorge David Cadena-Zamudio

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-85676-7
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

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Abstract Bioprospecting identifies new sources of compounds with actual or potential economic value that come from biodiversity. An analysis was performed regarding bioprospecting purposes in ten genotypes of Sechium spp., through a meta-analysis of 20 information sources considering different variables: five morphological, 19 biochemical, anti-proliferative activity of extracts on five malignant cell lines, and 188 polymorphic bands of amplified fragment length polymorphisms, were used in order to identify the most relevant variables for the design of genetic interbreeding. Significant relationships between morphological and biochemical characters and anti-proliferative activity in cell lines were obtained, with five principal components for principal component analysis (SAS/ETS); variables were identified with a statistical significance ( 0.5) and nine variables (< 0.05), Finally, using a cladistics analysis approach highlighted 65 genetic bands, in addition to color of the fruit, presence of thorns, bitter flavor, piriform and oblong shape, and also content of chlorophylls a and b, presence of cucurbitacins, and the IC50 effect of chayote extracts on the four cell lines.