Technology Readiness Level Roadmap for Developing Innovative Herbal Medicinal Products.

Despite the vast global botanical diversity, the pharmaceutical development of herbal medicinal products (HMPs) remains underexploited. Of over 370,000 described plant species, only a few hundred are utilized in HMPs. Most of these have originated from traditional use, and only a minority come from megadiverse countries.

Merulinic acid C overcomes gentamicin resistance in Enterococcus faecium.

Enterococci are gram-positive, widespread nosocomial pathogens that in recent years have developed resistance to various commonly employed antibiotics. Since finding new infection-control agents based on secondary metabolites from organisms has proved successful for decades, natural products are potentially useful sources of compounds with activity against enterococci. Herein are reported the results of a natural product library screening based on a whole-cell assay against a gram-positive model organism, which led to the isolation of a series of anacardic acids identified by analysis of their spectroscopic data and by chemical derivatizations.

Epiisopilosine alkaloid has activity against Schistosoma mansoni in mice without acute toxicity.

Schistosomiasis is a disease caused by parasites of the genus Schistosoma, currently affecting more than 200 million people. Among the various species of this parasite that infect humans, S. mansoni is the most common.

Is environmental legislation conserving tropical stream faunas? A large-scale assessment of local, riparian and catchment-scale influences on Amazonian fish.

Agricultural expansion and intensification are major threats to tropical biodiversity. In addition to the direct removal of native vegetation, agricultural expansion often elicits other human-induced disturbances, many of which are poorly addressed by existing environmental legislation and conservation programmes. This is particularly true for tropical freshwater systems, where there is considerable uncertainty about whether a legislative focus on protecting riparian vegetation is sufficient to conserve stream fauna.

Testing Wallace's intuition: water type, reproductive isolation and divergence in an Amazonian fish.

Alfred Russel Wallace proposed classifying Amazon rivers based on their colour and clarity: white, black and clear water. Wallace also proposed that black waters could mediate diversification and yield distinct fish species. Here, we bring evidence of speciation mediated by water type in the sailfin tetra (Crenuchus spilurus), a fish whose range encompasses rivers of very distinct hydrochemical conditions.