Imagine a plant that is unique to Brazil and is the  only natural source of a substance used in pharmaceuticals. That’s the jaborandi (Pilocarpus microphyllus), a jewel of Amazonian biodiversity which has become the subject of research at the Instituto Tecnológico Vale - Desenvolvimento Sustentável (ITV-DS) [Vale Technological Institute - Sustainable Development], in Belém. The study aims to better understand the species and ensure its preservation, as it is threatened with extinction.

From the jaborandi leaves, pilocarpine is extracted and used to produce eye drops that treat glaucoma. The eye disease affects the optic nerve and can lead to blindness. The substance helps reduce the intraocular pressure that damages the nerve and was one of the first medications used to combat the problem.

Due to the relevance of jaborandi and its therapeutic uses, the project  “Bioeconomia do jaborandi” [Bioeconomy of jaborandi], carried out since 2015 at ITV-DS, under the coordination of researcher Cecílio Frois Caldeira Júnior, seeks to map the areas where jaborandi occurs, encourage sustainable extraction, unveil cultivation techniques and sequence the genome of the species.

The fieldwork is being carried out in the Floresta Nacional (Flona) de Carajás [Carajás National Forest], in partnership with the local Cooperativa dos Extrativistas (Coex) [Extractivists' Cooperative] and the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio) [Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation]. Flona is a federal conservation unit that covers the municipalities of Parauapebas, Canaã dos Carajás and Água Azul do Norte. It constitutes an area where jaborandi is highly prevalent, with a history of extractivism by local communities, as it happens in the Xingu region.

EXPLOITATION

Since the end of the 19th century, European medicine has revealed the properties of jaborandi for the treatment of glaucoma, which initiated the demand for its leaves, naturally found only in eastern Pará, western and northern Maranhão and northern Piauí.

“Back in 1920, there had already been commercial exploitation of jaborandi, which intensified greatly in the 70s and 80s, when the demand peaked. Then, there was disorderly extraction, a depletion of the plants in their natural environment, because people would pull off not only the leaves, but the branches and even the whole plant to harvest a large amount of it and sell to the industry”, says researcher Cecílio Caldeira.

In addition to the predatory exploitation of the plant, deforestation itself as a whole has been threatening the species. “These two drivers have decimated more than 50% of the natural populations of jaborandi. Today, it is considered an endangered species according to Brazilian legislation,” says Caldeira.

He refers to the inclusion of jaborandi, since 1992, in the Official List of Endangered Species of Brazilian Flora, systematized by the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (Ibama) [Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources]. This list remains to this day.

Ancestral knowledge has boosted research

Long before it was discovered by European medicine, jaborandi was already used by indigenous people for therapeutic and ritualistic purposes. According to Gracialda Ferreira, a professor at the Federal Rural University of the Amazon (Ufra) and also a jaborandi researcher in the Carajás National Forest, the Tupi-Guarani recognized jaborandi as ia-mbor-endi, meaning “that which makes one drool”.

“It is an allusion to its sudorific effect and stimulation of the salivary glands. The indigenous people may have used jaborandi in shamanic rituals to cure illnesses, due to the sweating, abundant salivation and tremors properties resulting from a ‘semi-epileptic’ stage provoked by chewing its leaves in large quantities”, explains the forestry engineer.

On this issue, researcher Cecílio Caldeira reinforces: “Because it causes salivation and sweating, they also used it to treat insect and snake bites, in a way to expell the venom.”
It was from this ancestral knowledge that the possibility of using the plant and isolating the substance pilocarpine was perceived. “But it was knowledge brought by indigenous people and that continues to this day, with the collection of leaves by local communities,” recalls Caldeira.

CURRENT USES

Although there are other species of the same genus that produce pilocarpine, Pilocarpus microphyllus is the one that concetrates the highest level of the substance in its leaves, making it commercially viable for the production of eye drops for glaucoma. But the use of the plant is not limited to this purpose.

Pilocarpine is also used to treat xerostomia, a dry mouth caused by chemotherapy or radiotherapy treatments in the head and neck region. Recalling the meaning of the indigenous name jaborandi, pilocarpine helps with the salivary reflex.

Researcher Gracialda Ferreira points out that the plant is also widely used by the cosmetics industry for hair and skin care. Cecílio Caldeira also says that a new type of eye drop that uses pilocarpine is already available in the US market to treat presbyopia, also known as age-related farsightedness. “For now, it is restricted to the US market, which is already a huge market. So, there is a great demand for the pilocarpine molecule in this regard as well,” says the specialist.

Pilocarpine production varies depending on the environment

The research led by Cecílio Caldeira at the Instituto Tecnológico Vale [Vale Technological Institute] is working on several fronts. One of them is the mapping of areas where the jaborandi occurs within the Carajás National Forest, so that extractive communities can manage the species more efficiently.

“If I harvest jaborandi at point A and I am able to harvest at point A and point B, that means in one year I can harvest at point A and, the following year, point A will rest and I will harvest point B. The plant can then rebuild its canopy, and I can extract many more leaves, because it will recover better. It is a more sustainable management method,” explains the researcher.

Moreover, the team is studying the best techniques for jaborandi cultivation. The idea is to reintroduce it into areas where it has already been found, in forest recovery actions developed by Vale in the region. Another possibility being considered is to include jaborandi in agroforestry systems, combined with other species, adding value to this production. For this purpose, it is necessary to discover how to propagate jaborandi and how to produce seedlings that grow and develop well in a natural environment.

“We have researches on all these themes. Pilocarpine production varies depending on the environment where the plant is, and we have studies to understand what influences this production, the interaction between genetic and environmental factors. So, we try to reproduce this in order to optimize this production and offer leaves in the quantity and quality the industry so desperately needs,” says Caldeira.

CONTENT

Jaborandi is exploited by means of extractivism. This is because the pilocarpine content naturally present in the leaves of plants is drastically different from those present in cultivated species.

“There were attempts to cultivate it in the 1970s and 1980s, when the first plantations began. However, it has been noticed that, despite producing a lot of leaves, the pilocarpine concentration dropped significantly. In a natural environment, the average concentration in dry leaves is around 1%. In cultivation, this drops by half or less. This makes extracting pilocarpine from these leaves financially unviable,” says Caldeira. “In order to have agricultural production, it is necessary to mix it with the production coming from the forest. Therefore, jaborandi still needs to be harvested under natural conditions,” he adds.

But the research aims to provide an answer to the issue, with studies on cultivation. “We will put these plants to grow under certain conditions, to see if they will grow well and produce pilocarpine in a higher concentration than that we have in the cultivated areas. It is important to have cultivated jaborandi, so that the areas of natural occurrence, which are already getting smaller, are not lost due to a very high demand likely to come from the industry”, explains the agricultural engineer.

Research sequences the jaborandi genome

The ITV-DS research also sequences the jaborandi genome. Over the years of studies, the so-called DNA barcodes have been mapped, created from small stretches of DNA extracted from standardized regions of the gene. But the goal is to describe the complete genetic sequence of the species.

The genetic study of jaborandi is part of the Projeto Genômica da Biodiversidade Brasileira [Brazilian Biodiversity Genomics Project], a partnership established between ITV-DS and ICMBio. The initiative aims to generate 80 reference genomes of Brazilian species, one of which is jaborandi. Caldeira hopes that, in about one year of studies, the process is completed and the team may deliver the first complete genome of an Amazonian medicinal plant species.

COMMUNITIES

In addition to encouraging preservation and producing knowledge about the species, the research also brings benefits to the extractive communities. “We showed Coex, which harvests jaborandi there, new areas of occurrence, increasing the capacity for leaf production. This also allows for optimized management, with areas producing and areas resting. It provides a wealth of knowledge about preservation, but also benefits for the communities, because jaborandi is an important source of income for them,” says Caldeira.

Ana Paula Nascimento, president of Coex, confirms the positive results of participating in the studies conducted by Professor Gracialda Ferreira, from Ufra, and by ITV-DS. “It is very good for the cooperative. We gain in several aspects, including the negotiating power with the industry, because, having the productive areas mapped out, we can estimate how much will be sold that year. We contract with greater security and assurance that we will comply”, says the extractivist.

According to the president, the results are very significant for the cooperative members’ income, since production is growing. “In 2021, we collected 30 tons; in 2022, 34 tons. In 2023, 52 tons of dried leaves were sold to the company that processes them,” she says.
“It is a way of generating income for the families involved in this activity, but there is also the environmental issue, because we work within a conservation unit, within a management plan, with a concern for sustainability and for this species native to the Amazon biome that has such important properties”, concludes Ana Paula.

INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERSHIP
The production of Liberal Amazon is one of the initiatives of the Technical Cooperation Agreement between the Liberal Group and the Federal University of Pará. The articles involving research from UFPA are revised by professionals from the academy. The translation of the content is also provided by the agreement, through the research project ET-Multi: Translation Studies: multifaces and multisemiotics.