Lavandula penduculata (Mill.) Cav., common English name French lavender, belongs to the Lamiaceae
family and has been used as a medicinal plant in infusions for respiratory and digestive systems and as a
therapeutic agent with antiseptic action for cleaning wounds [1,2]. The K14HPV16 mice is a skin squamous
carcinoma model that can be used to test the antitumoral properties of several chemical and natural products
[3]. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of the hydroethanolic French lavender extract (FLE) on
body weight, relative organs weights, food and water consumption in an HPV-16-transgenic mice model.
The extract was obtained from a maceration with ethanol/water (80:20, v/v), and the phenolic composition
was determined through HPLC-DAD-ESI/MS. Twenty-eight male mice were randomly divided into four
groups (n=7/group) according to their genotype: group I (HPV16- control); II (HPV16- FLE); III (HPV16+
control) and IV (HPV16+ FLE). The FLE was administrated orally in drinking water at 6.8 mg/10mL/animal
to animals from groups II and IV and changed every 4 days. The animals were kept under controlled
conditions such as temperature, light and humidity. Food and water were kept ad libitum
body weight, food and water consumption were measured weekly as well as animal welfare. After twentynine
days, all animals were sacrificed by anaesthetic overdose and blood was obtained from cardiac
punction. The organs were collected and immediately weighted. Data was analysed using SPSS 25. The
differences were considered statistically significant at p<0.05. A total of thirteen compounds were identified
in the hydroethanolic extract, being salvianolic acid B and rosmarinic acid the main molecules present.
Moreover, the compounds revealed to be stable in the drinking water during the 5 tested days. HPV animals
exposed to FLE (group III) showed higher values of body weight variation than HPV animals not exposed
to lavender in week 1, 2 and 3 (p<0.05), suggesting that the FLE was highly palatable. However, the values
of food consumption were identical between groups and water intake was higher in transgenic animals as
expected. The relative organ weight of heart, lung, kidneys, adrenals and liver did not demonstrate
differences between groups (p<0.05). According to our results the consumption of French lavender
demonstrated a favourable and safe toxicological profile using these experimental conditionsThis work was supported by European Investment Funds by FEDER/ COMPETE/POCI - Operational Competitiveness and
Internationalization Program and National Funds by FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under the projects
Project UIDB/04033/2020 (CITAB), and PhD fellowship SFRH/BD/136747/2018 and 2020.04789.BD. The authors are also
grateful to FCT for financial support through national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020). L. Barros thanks FCT,
P.I for her contract through the institutional scientific employment program. This work was also funded by the European Regional
Development Fund (ERDF) through the Regional Operational Program North 2020, within the scope of Project GreenHealth -
Norte-01-0145-FEDER-000042. The authors would like to thank BPGV for the samples provided.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
