is a Brazilian native tree of the Caatinga (a unique semiarid biome). It is widely used in traditional medicine showing anti-inflammatory and central nervous system modulating activities. The species is a rich source of specialized metabolites, mostly alkaloids and flavonoids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Natural products of pharmaceutical interest often do not reach the drug market due to the associated low yields and difficult extraction. Knowledge of biosynthetic pathways is a key element in the development of biotechnological strategies for plant specialized metabolite production. species are mainly used as central nervous system depressants in folk medicine and are important sources of bioactive tetracyclic benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs), which can act on several pathology-related biological targets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlanta Med
February 2021
Tropane alkaloids are specialized plant metabolites mostly found in the Erythroxylaceae and Solanaceae families. Although tropane alkaloids have a high degree of structural similarity because of the tropane ring, their pharmacological actions are quite distinct. Brazil is one of the main hotspots of spp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLycorine is an Amaryllidaceae alkaloid that presents anti-Trichomonas vaginalis activity. T. vaginalis causes trichomoniasis, the most common non-viral sexually transmitted infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: The aim of this study was to develop a Trifolium pratense hairy root (HR) production protocol and select HR lines with high isoflavone yield following elicitor treatments.
Results: We obtained 13 independent HR lines, producing approximately three times more isoflavonoids than seedlings (3.3 mg/g dry weight) and in which 27 isoflavonoids were detected.
The development of new antiepileptic drugs is a high-risk/high-cost research field, which is made even riskier if the behavioral epileptic seizure profile is the unique approach on which the development is based. In order to increase the effectiveness of the screening conducted in the zebrafish model of status epilepticus (SE), the evaluation of neurochemical markers of SE would be of great relevance. Epilepsy is associated with changes in the glutamatergic system, and glutamate uptake is one of the critical parameters of this process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: This study was aimed to investigate the in vitro permeation potential of hydrogel formulations containing the isoflavones formononetin and biochanin A and cyclodextrins in different combinations.
Methods: The permeation assay was performed using porcine skin discs on Franz diffusion cells model. The isoflavone contents of the formulations were quantified in the different layers of the skin using a validated HPLC-PDA method.
Cytotoxicity assays using cell cultures may be an alternative to assess biological toxicity of plant extracts with potential phytotherapeutic properties. This study compared three methods to prepare culture media for the exposure of Vero cells to plant extracts. Leaves of Glandularia selloi (Spreng.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Amaryllidaceae family is known by its ornamental and medicinal value and has attracted considerable attention due to the content of alkaloids of its species, which showed interesting biological properties. The present study evaluated the anti-Trichomonas vaginalis activity of eighteen extracts (12.5 to 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCompounds isolated from different members of the Amaryllidaceae family are becoming relevant options for the treatment of neurological disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, species of the Hippeastrum genus are important source of alkaloids with a wide profile of putative therapeutical applications. Here, we report on the behavioral and pharmaco-toxicological characterization of montanine, an isoquinoline alkaloid isolated from Hippeastrum vittatum, an ornamental plant found throughout the world.
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