Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol
August 2024
Justice-involved individuals who reach the end of their full prison sentence no longer benefit from the supervision and rehabilitation services offered by probation or parole. Some of these individuals, who have been assessed to be a high risk for sexual and violent reoffending and deemed to pose a significant violence risk in the community if released, are placed on a judicial order in Canada, and police are asked to supervise and manage the risk of these individuals. In the current study, the files of 45 high-risk, justice-involved individuals, who completed their sentences, were released from a Canadian prison into the province of Alberta, and supervised by police under a judicial order, were reviewed for the presence of criminogenic and non-criminogenic needs over the first year of release.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) epidemic remains globally active. The emergence of new variants of interest and variants of concern (VoCs), which are potentially more vaccine-resistant and less sensitive to existing treatments, is evident due to their high prevalence. The prospective spread of such variants and other coronaviruses with epidemic potential demands preparedness that can be met by developing fast-track workflows to find new candidates that target viral proteins with a clear and phenotype.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA study targeting novel antifungal metabolites identified potent antifungal activity against key plant pathogens in acetone extracts of sp. strain CA-296093. Feature-based molecular networking revealed the presence in this extract of antimycin-related compounds, leading to the isolation of four new compounds: escuzarmycins A-D (-).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe PD-1/PD-L1 protein-protein interaction (PPI) controls an adaptive immune resistance mechanism exerted by tumor cells to evade immune responses. The large-molecule nature of current commercial monoclonal antibodies against this PPI hampers their effectiveness by limiting tumor penetration and inducing severe immune-related side effects. Synthetic small-molecule inhibitors may overcome such limitations and have demonstrated promising clinical translation, but their design is challenging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntonie Van Leeuwenhoek
January 2024
An appealing strategy for finding novel bioactive molecules in Nature consists in exploring underrepresented and -studied microorganisms. Here, we investigated the antimicrobial and tumoral anti-proliferative bioactivities of twenty-three marine and estuarine bacteria of the fascinating phylum Planctomycetota. This was achieved through extraction of compounds produced by the Planctomycetota cultured in oligotrophic medium followed by an antimicrobial screening against ten relevant human pathogens including Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, and fungi.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, with breast cancer being the second cause of cancer-related mortality among women. Natural Products (NPs) are one of the main sources for drug discovery. During a screening campaign focused on the identification of extracts from Fundación MEDINA's library inhibiting the proliferation of cancer cell lines, a significant bioactivity was observed in extracts from cultures of the fungus CF-097565.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe fungal strain BC17 was isolated from sediments collected in the intertidal zone of the inner Bay of Cadiz and characterized as . On the basis of the one strain-many compounds (OSMAC) approach, four new eremophilane-type sesquiterpenes (-), together with thirteen known derivatives (-) and two reported diketopiperazines (, ), were isolated from this strain. The chemical structures and absolute configurations of the new compounds were determined through extensive NMR and HRESIMS spectroscopic studies and ECD calculation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the lack of effective treatments against betacoronaviruses and the urgent need for new broad-spectrum antivirals. Natural products are a valuable source of bioactive compounds with pharmaceutical potential that may lead to the discovery of new antiviral agents. Specifically, compared to conventional synthetic molecules, microbial natural extracts possess a unique and vast chemical diversity and are amenable to large-scale production.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNatural Products (NPs) are one of the main sources for drug discovery. Many clinical drugs are NPs or NP-inspired compounds, and recently discovered New Chemical Entities (NCEs) of NPs are emerging as promising new drugs. High-Throughput Screening (HTS) of large sample sets or libraries has grown to be vital for the drug discovery field.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn a survey to evaluate the potential of lichens associated with gypsum areas as sources of new antifungal metabolites, six species of lichens were collected in the gypsum outcrops of the Sorbas Desert ( and ) and the Tabernas Desert (, , and ) in southern Spain. Raw lichen acetone extracts were tested against a panel of seven phytopathogenic fungi, including , , f.sp TR4, , , and .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntimicrobial resistance can be considered a hidden global pandemic and research must be reinforced for the discovery of new antibiotics. The spirotetronate class of polyketides, with more than 100 bioactive compounds described to date, has recently grown with the discovery of phocoenamicins, compounds displaying different antibiotic activities. Three marine strains (CA-214671, CA-214658 and CA-218877), identified as phocoenamicins producers, were chosen to scale up their production and LC/HRMS analyses proved that EtOAc extracts from their culture broths produce several structurally related compounds not disclosed before.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCancer is considered one of the main causes of human death worldwide, being characterized by an alteration of the oxidative metabolism. Many natural compounds from plant origin with anti-tumor attributes have been described. Among them, capsaicin, which is the molecule responsible for the pungency in hot pepper fruits, has been reported to show antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic activities, as well as anti-proliferative properties against cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFis a fungal genus from which a wide range of diverse biologically active compounds have been isolated. A CF-080171 extract was identified to exhibit potent activity against 3D7 and Tulahuen whole parasites in a high-throughput screening (HTS) campaign of microbial extracts from the Fundación MEDINA's collection. Bioassay-guided isolation of the active metabolites from this extract afforded eight new meroterpenoids of varying potencies, namely, memnobotrins C-E (-), a glycosylated isobenzofuranone (), a tricyclic isobenzofuranone (), a tetracyclic benzopyrane (), a tetracyclic isobenzofuranone (), and a pentacyclic isobenzofuranone ().
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrent needs in finding new antibiotics against emerging multidrug-resistant superbugs are pushing the scientific community into coming back to Nature for the discovery of novel active structures. Recently, a survey of halophilic actinomyectes from saline substrates of , in the Cúllar-Baza depression (Granada, Spain), led us to the isolation and identification of 108 strains from the rhizosphere of the endemic plant . Evaluation of the potential of these strains to produce new anti-infective agents against superbug pathogens was performed through fermentation in 10 different culture media using an OSMAC approach and assessment of the antibacterial and antifungal properties of their acetone extracts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Psychiatry Rep
November 2022
Purpose Of Review: The literature on sexual violence perpetration against an intimate partner is reviewed and synthesized. Intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV) is compared to other forms of interpersonal violence, and the heterogeneity of perpetrators is explored through an examination of proposed taxonomies. This review also addresses the applicability of existing risk assessment tools to IPSV perpetrators and identifies criminogenic needs of particular relevance to IPSV.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFForkhead box O (FOXO) proteins are transcription factors involved in cancer and aging and their pharmacological manipulation could be beneficial for the treatment of cancer and healthy aging. FOXO proteins are mainly regulated by post-translational modifications including phosphorylation, acetylation and ubiquitination. As these modifications are reversible, activation and inactivation of FOXO factors is attainable through pharmacological treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs part of our screening program for the discovery of molecules of microbial origin with skin-whitening activity, 142 diverse fungal endophytes from a wide variety of Andalusia arid plants were screened, applying the OSMAC approach. The fungal strains CF-090361 and CF-090766, isolated from xerophytic plants, were selected as the most promising, while phylogenetic analysis revealed that both strains could represent a new species within the genus Comoclathris. The effect of different fermentation conditions on the production of tyrosinase inhibitory activity was examined, in order to identify the optimum cultivation conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe number of species in section has recently increased to 36 and includes some of the most important and well-known species in the genus . Numerous secondary metabolites, especially mycotoxins, have been reported from species such as ; however many of the more recently described species are less studied from a chemical point of view. This paper describes the use of MS/MS-based molecular networking to investigate the metabolome of leading to the discovery of several new diketopiperazine dimers and aspergillicins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn abundant sponge of the order Bubarida was selected for further chemical investigation following biological and chemical screening of sponges collected from Futuna Islands in the Indo-Pacific. Ten new nitrogenous bisabolene derivatives were isolated and identified: the monomeric theonellin formamide analogues named bubaridins A-F (1-6) with unusual oxidised linear chains, and the first isocyanide/formamide dimeric and cyclised bisabolenes 7-9. The structure elucidation of these nitrogenous bisabolenes involved HRESIMS, NMR, and ECD analyses, and the chiral compounds were found to be racemates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA novel cyclic antimalarial and antitrypanosome hexapeptide, pipecolisporin (), was isolated from cultures of CF-298113, a fungal endophyte isolated from roots of sp. collected in a traditional agricultural land of Montefrío, Granada, Spain. The structure of this compound, including its absolute configuration, was elucidated by HRMS, 1-D and 2-D NMR spectroscopy, and Marfey's analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFive new polyketides were isolated from the rare filamentous fungus IBT 16748 including calidiol A (); three phthalide derivatives califuranones A, A, and B (-); and a pair of enantiomers (-)-calitetralintriol A (-) and (+)-calitetralintriol A (+) together with four known metabolites (-). The structures of the new products were established by extensive spectroscopic analyses including HRMS and 1D and 2D NMR. The absolute configurations of two diastereomers and and the enantiomers (-) and (+) were assigned by comparing their experimental and calculated ECD data, whereas the absolute configuration of was proposed by analogy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMarine sponges harbor diverse microbial communities that represent a significant source of natural products. In the present study, extracts of 21 sponge-associated bacteria were screened for their antimicrobial and anticancer activity, and their genomes were mined for secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). Phylogenetic analysis assigned the strains to four major phyla in the sponge microbiome, namely Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Firmicutes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAsperphenamate is a small peptide natural product that has gained much interest due to its antitumor activity. In the recent years numerous bioactive synthetic asperphenamate analogs have been reported, whereas only a handful of natural analogs either of microbial or plant origin has been discovered. Herein we describe a UHPLC-HRMS/MS and amino acid supplement approach for discovery and design of novel asperphenamate analogs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA chemical investigation of IBT 16748 led to the isolation of two new oxepine-pyrimidinone-ketopiperazine type nonribosomal peptides oxepinamides L () and M (). Their structures were characterised by spectroscopic analysis including HRESIMS, 1D and 2D NMR. The absolute structure of was assigned by ECD calculation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTwo new naphthyl-products calinaphthyltriol A (1) and calinaphthalenone A (2) were isolated from Aspergillus californicus IBT 16748 together with one known compound ophiobolin X (3). Their structures were elucidated by extensive spectroscopic analyses. The absolute configuration of 2 was solved by comparing its optical rotation with data for the known compounds 4, 5, and 6 as well as theoretical calculations.
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