Efeitos do óleo essencial de Citrus limon (L.) em Drosophila melanogaster exposta ao crack

Abstract

Crack, cocaine in its smoked form, is a serious public health problem, since it is a drug of abuse that acts on the Central Nervous System (CNS) promoting behavioral, cognition,movement and reproductive changes, in addition to causing dependence. In Brazil, the growing use of psychoactive drugs is a public health problem, due to difficulties in control, lack of investment and social policies aimed especially at crack users. Thus, alternative therapies have been widely developed by several researches. Essential oils have been used as an alternative therapy in the treatment of various diseases due to their multifactorial benefits, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anticonvulsant, anxiolytic, antidepressant, antinociceptive, antimicrobial and neuroprotective actions. A species of oil that has been extensively studied is Citrus limon (OECL). Despite these data, studies on the use of OECL in the molecular and behavioral mechanisms promoted by crack are largely scarce. Drosophila melanogaster is among the model organisms for several recent studies in the field of mutagenesis and toxicology, being considered a promising substitute for more complex animals in laboratory tests due to its numerous advantages in handling, low cost, ability to generate large populations, cycle of short life span, clearly distinct developmental stages, known genomic sequence, and physiological similarity to humans. In this perspective, the objective of the present work is to investigate the possible effects of OECL administration on toxicity, motor and cognitive capacity in Drosophila melanogaster exposed to crack at different stages of development. In the results, it was verified that the groups exposed to crack had a decrease in the number of pupae and hatches when compared to the groups that were exposed to crack and treated with Citrus limon essential oil, there was also an increase in locomotion of both groups crack in relation to the control, additionally, no depressive-like behavior was observed through the adopted methodology. These factors confirm that Drosophila is an efficient model to test toxicity and elucidate molecular mechanisms caused by exposure to crack. In this study, the results reinforce the hypothesis of independent sensitization of high doses of psychostimulants, as well as demonstrating that there is a threshold of maximum tolerated concentration for the use of essential oil around 0.2%. The results showed, in an unprecedented way in the literature, that OECL reduced locomotor activity, as well as highlighted the importance of discovering new alternative treatments for crack addiction and highlighted the positive effects of OECL, which are promising therapeutic resources to increase the quality of life of crack users.