Ecdysteroids in Native Trees and Callus Cultures of the Genus Vitex L. of the Flora of Russia and Vietnam.

Introduction: Vitex L. is a large genus of tropical and subtropical trees used in medicine of many nations. Some species are used in gynecology due to flavonoids, iridoids, and diterpenes.

Calcite Nanotuned Chitinous Skeletons of Giant Marine Demosponge.

Marine sponges were among the first multicellular organisms on our planet and have survived to this day thanks to their unique mechanisms of chemical defense and the specific design of their skeletons, which have been optimized over millions of years of evolution to effectively inhabit the aquatic environment. In this work, we carried out studies to elucidate the nature and nanostructural organization of three-dimensional skeletal microfibers of the giant marine demosponge , the body of which is a micro-reticular, durable structure that determines the ideal filtration function of this organism. For the first time, using the battery of analytical tools including three-dimensional micro-X-ray Fluorescence (3D-µXRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), infra-red (FTIR), Raman and Near Edge X-ray Fine Structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy, we have shown that biomineral calcite is responsible for nano-tuning the skeletal fibers of this sponge species.