Review of Biological Activities of Some Rare Oils from Amazonian Plants

Background/Objectives: A great biodiversity of compounds from Brazilian medicinal plants are considered to be a promising source for biological activities in the cosmetics and pharmaceuticals sectors. Lipids and mainly fatty acids from Brazilian medicinal plants and their bioactive components are promising ingredients with proven diverse biological activities. To undertake a review of some rare oils of Brazilian medicinal plants with corroborated biological activities, we selected data from the scientific literature reporting the efficacy of plants used in folk medicine as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory or other types of activity of their oil phases extracts and isolated fatty acids. Methods: A search of the literature was undertaken by using the following web tools: Web of Science, SciFinder, Pub-Med and ScienceDirect. The terms "biological activity", "anti-inflammatory", "açai oil, andiroba oil, bacuri butter, buriti oil, cupuaçu butter and pracaxi oil", and "free fatty acids" and "Amazonian plant oils" were used as keywords in the search engines. The Tropicos and Reflora websites were used to verify the origin of the plants, and only native plants from Brazil were included in this review. Only the publications reporting the use of well-accepted scientific protocols to corroborate the potential biological activities of rare oils of Amazonian plants were considered. Results: We selected 6 Brazilian medicinal plant oils extracts (acai, andiroba, bacuri, buriti, cupuaçu, pracaxi) with multiple biological activities. The observations were presented as a function of the oil origin and the most important biological activities were detailed. Conclusions: The collected data on the rare oils from Amazonian plants, in the form of crude extract and/or isolated compounds, showed significant biological activities involving different mechanisms of action, indicating that these oils could be an important source of lipids with biological activity.