Prodigiosin: a promising biomolecule with many potential biomedical applications.

Pigments are among the most fascinating molecules found in nature and used by human civilizations since the prehistoric ages. Although most of the bio-dyes reported in the literature were discovered around the eighties, the necessity to explore novel compounds for new biological applications has made them resurface as potential alternatives. Prodigiosin (PG) is an alkaloid red bio-dye produced by diverse microorganisms and composed of a linear tripyrrole chemical structure.

Simple colorimetric method to determine the in vitro antioxidant activity of different monoterpenes.

The development of simple, fast and reproducible techniques that provide information about the antioxidant activity (AA) of different compounds is essential to screen and discover new molecules with potential applications in the therapeutic, cosmetic, toxicological and food fields. Here, a novel and simple colorimetric method ("BCB assay") is proposed for measuring the AA of chemical compounds by protection of the reporter dye Brilliant Cresyl Blue (BCB) from loss of color due to oxidation by hypochlorite (a physiological oxidant). The decay in BCB blue color (λ = 634 nm) in the presence of hypochlorite occurred in only 5 min and was used to track the AA of different molecules.