A Review of the Antimalarial, Antitrypanosomal, and Antileishmanial Activities of Natural Compounds Isolated From Nigerian Flora

This guest editorial sketches the history of the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles (ICSN, Gif-sur-Yvette, France) and presents the research topics currently developed at the Institute. The "Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles" (Gif-sur-Yvette, France) was created by the CNRS1 in 1959, under the scientific input of Prof. Edgar Lederer and Maurice-Marie Janot, with the aim to promote the Chemistry of Natural Products in France through both research and training programs. Indeed, this area was not covered by academic research programs that were mainly devoted, at that time, to fundamental organic synthesis. The Institute was structured initially into two separate sections around the research activities of its founders: the chemistry of alkaloids and antibiotics, on one hand, and the chemistry of natural products of microbial, plant, and animal origins, on the other. Since the foundation of the ICSN answered to a deliberate commitment and scientific policy of the CNRS, the Institute received strong support in terms of human resources. In 1960, the Institute's 114 research scientists, engineers, and technicians represented more than 10 % of all the chemists hired by the CNRS at the national level. The permanent staff of the Institute increased regularly in number, and over 170 scientific employees were hired by both the CNRS and INSERM2 in the eighties when the ICSN attained prominent international renown. From the seventies onwards, the Institute was directed or co-directed by Pierre Potier (from 1974 to 2000), Sir Derek Barton (from 1977 to 1986), and Guy Ourisson (from 1985 to 1989), then followed by Jean-Yves Lallemand, David Crich, and Max Malacria during the 2001–2014 period. At the interface between chemistry and biology, research at the ICSN focused mainly on natural products of biological relevance, and as potential sources of new drugs, in strong connection with French industrial partners (Roussel-Uclaf, Pierre Fabre, Sanofi, Servier, and others). In pioneering actions, research antennas were established over the years in Noumea (New Caledonia) and French Guyana in order to gain easier access to extended world biodiversity. For the same purpose, collaborative networks have been established with academic research laboratories notably in Malaysia and Vietnam. Research on bioactive molecules culminated in the discovery of two anticancer drugs of natural origin (Figure 1), Navelbine® from Catharanthus roseus (1978, for treatment of lung and breast cancers, marketed in 1989) and Taxotere® from Taxus baccata (1986, for breast and lung cancer).3 Both drugs were discovered, patented, and developed by the Pierre Potier team,4 in partnership with the Laboratoires Pierre Fabre and Rhône-Poulenc (now Sanofi) companies, respectively. They afforded huge financial benefits to both the CNRS and the cooperating companies: to get an idea of how successful these drugs were, we can recall that Taxotere® alone had an annual turnover of over 1.7 billion Euros in 2004. A third natural substance, the marine metabolite Girolline (Girodazole®) attained clinical trials. The challenges of investigating nature and biodiversity represent today, more than ever, major societal issues within the context of sustainable development. The increased recognition of the pivotal role of biodiversity for human health and well-being encourages sheltering biodiversity from threats of overexploitation and human economic development. In this context, in-depth knowledge of natural ecosystems remains a global strategic issue. It represents a focused mission of the ICSN, which has developed unique expertise in this area, together with expertise in the valorization of bioresources (marine organisms, plants, and microorganisms) as therapeutics and cosmetics. Nevertheless, modern natural products chemistry could not expand and evolve without interdisciplinary approaches including acquisition and exploitation of big data combined with metabolomics, bioinformatic methods and analytical tools, advanced synthetic and theoretical methods, chemistry oriented to drug discovery in selected therapeutic areas, knowledge of biosynthetic pathways, chemical biology, genomics, and chemical ecology. Today, therefore, the ICSN pursues research activities inspired by natural substances and oriented toward their biomedical applications but also develops recognized expertise in the above complementary areas. It is consequently organized into four research departments: "Natural Products and Medicinal Chemistry", "Organic Synthesis and Catalytic Methods", "Chemical Biology", and "Analytical and Structural Chemistry and Biology". At the same time, multidisciplinary projects at the interface of chemistry and biology are implemented as transversal, inter-department programs. The ICSN benefits today from its long-established expertise in the isolation and characterization of bioactive natural products and has the complete know-how needed to develop new drugs based on these natural compounds. Scientific missions are organized worldwide for sourcing and taking inventories of biodiversity in under-explored areas of the planet. These missions are conducted within the framework of cooperation networks and technological development projects, with total respect of the Nagoya protocol on access and benefit sharing. As mentioned, an ICSN antenna, the "Laboratoire des Plantes Médicinales", is located in the New Caledonian biodiversity "Hot Spot" (Noumea). Moreover, two Associated International Laboratories (LIA) managed by M. Litaudon, F. Roussi, and A. Al-Mourabit are currently operating. The first involves the Institute of Marine Biochemistry (IMBC) of the Academy of Sciences and Technology of Vietnam (Hanoi) and the second the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Malaya (Kuala Lumpur). The collection of organisms and microorganisms of marine origin is being improved in terms of sourcing and preservation of natural ecosystems thanks to the SOMARTEX technology (Self Operating MARine Trapping Extractor). The device principle is the extraction of molecules produced by invertebrate holobionts in their natural habitat at any location and depth without the necessity of harvesting the organisms. The SOMARTEX as well as the UNIFERTEX (UNIversal FERmenTor EXpert) technologies developed by J. Ouazzani (CNRS patents) have been validated and exploited within the collaborative EU Horizon 2020 TASCMAR project ("Tools And Strategies to access original bioactive compounds by Cultivating MARine invertebrates and associated symbionts") which brings together 120 researchers from 8 European countries (http://www.tascmar.eu/). The ICSN extract library, the largest collection of natural extracts in the French public domain, gathers and indexes more than 14,000 extracts from over 7,000 endemic and indigenous plants, microbial strains and marine organisms. Selection of relevant botanical families and access to biodiversity-rich areas ensures great structural diversity and almost unlimited bioactivity potential. A database allows the management of the collection of microplates and data related to HTS phenotypic or target-based screenings. With respect to classical bio-guided approaches, the identification of new bioactive leads from complex matrices is accelerated today by bioinformatics and molecular network strategies. For instance, processing large sets of extracts by LC/MS-MS and implementation of biological activity filters enable instantaneous data mining and visualization of molecular networks of relevant clusters. ICSN teams currently apply and develop this recent approach as well as fast dereplication methods by supercritical chromatography. Medicinal chemistry programs tackle some of the World Health Organization's priority targets such as antibiotic resistance, which today attains highly preoccupying levels worldwide, and tropical diseases that are largely neglected because of their low strategic interest for private companies. Central Nervous System diseases and cancer are also among the therapeutic areas historically investigated at the ICSN. Studies of the receptor–ligand interactions using molecular modeling contribute to optimization of bioactivity. Most notably, identification of Paprotrain as a selective inhibitor of the MKLP2 kinesin with antitumor activity led to the creation of the Biokinesis start-up in 2012 (C. Guillou). The medicinal chemistry programs are based on both natural and synthetic bioactive compounds. They are implemented mainly within the framework of external collaborations with biologists and clinicians and are financially supported by Technology Transfer Agencies (SATT). At the same time, research programs in structural chemistry and biology aim at a better understanding of the relationship between the structure, dynamics, and function of relevant target proteins and their interactions with drugs. More specific interest relates to proteins presenting high intrinsic disorder that are involved in cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, or viral infections. In particular, these proteins are investigated by means of high-field NMR methods that are easily accessible since the ICSN operates one of the major High-Field French national NMR facilities that houses a 950 MHz instrument (http://www.ir-rmn.fr/en/). Furthermore, novel bioinformatics and computational methods are being developed particularly aimed at a better understanding of antibiotic resistance processes essential to the design of new antibiotics. Another facet of phytochemistry currently investigated at the ICSN relates to mechanisms of plant growth with relevance to agrochemistry. Special attention is payed to strigolactones, the most recently discovered class of plant hormones known for their role in the rhizosphere. Notably, the design of profluorescent probes enables a better understanding of strigolactone perception mechanisms and plant architecture control. Also, expeditious syntheses of glycolipidic plant growth promoters, as well as the biochemical identification of their receptors, are being actively investigated. Research programs in synthetic organic chemistry include the development of catalytic methods with special emphasis on processes allowing stereochemical control through enantioselective reactions. Rhodium-promoted nitrene transfers, visible light photoredox catalysis for new functionalization processes, uses of hypervalent iodine in tandem catalytic reactions, and gold-promoted cycloisomerizations are a few representative examples of organometallic catalysis studies carried out at the ICSN. In parallel, highly efficient enantioselective organocatalytic methods based on chiral phosphoric acids, such as difunctionalization of unsaturated ubstrates, as well as on trivalent phosphines for [3+2] cyclizations, are developed. The design of innovative organic photocatalysts and organoiodines, chiral phosphorus ligands and organocatalysts are also important areas of research. Moreover, methods in carbohydrate chemistry, including glycosylation strategies, as well as organic reactions involving elemental sulfur are actively developed. The new synthetic methods are challenged by their applications to either the synthesis of complex molecules, for example total synthesis of natural or bioactive compounds, or the development of diversity-oriented synthetic procedures, cascade, and multicomponent reactions. Generally speaking, focused objectives are environmentally friendly synthetic methods based on sustainable energy, direct CH functionalization, abundant resources (e.g., sulfur), and efficient tandem processes. In the field of chemical biology, research conducted at the ICSN involves the design of new probes for the study of biological events (smart probes for multimodal Magnetic Resonance (MRI)/Optical Imaging) as well as new strategies for metabolic glycan labeling. The metabolic labeling of bacterial lipopolysaccharides has led notably to the development of a rapid identification method for pathogenic Legionella pneumophila and resulted in the creation of the Click4Tag start-up company (B. Vauzeilles with S. Dukan, Marseille). Biological research at the ICSN includes studies on the adaptive response of mammalian cells towards environmental signals and stresses, focusing on reversible post-translational modifications of protein sensors of redox signals and related biorelevant Fe-S proteins. Advanced analysis and biological screening platforms provide support to both ICSN groups and external academic and private laboratories, bringing expertise and facilities in the areas of HPLC–Mass spectrometry, NMR spectroscopy, elemental analysis, X-ray diffraction, qPCR (quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction), TSA (Thermal Shift Assays), and HTS bioactivity screening. The ICSN's areas of expertise are labeled and structured at a national level by three "Excellence Laboratories" in which the Institute is involved: LabEx CEBA "CEnter for the study of Biodiversity in Amazonia", LabEx LERMIT "Laboratory of Excellence in Research on Medication and Innovative Therapeutics", and LabEx CHARM3AT "Chemistry of Multifunctional Molecular Architectures and MATerials" (Figure 2). At the local level, the ICSN is part of the emerging Paris-Saclay University bringing together 15 institutions: three universities, five major engineering and business schools, and seven research organizations including CNRS, CEA,5 INRA,6 and INSERM.2 These institutions decided to work on a common project and merged in 2015, pooling educational courses and research in order to face the challenges of global competition in these important domains. Offering training programs and research of highest international standards as well as fostering innovation and technology transfer by gathering academics and private research laboratories on the same campus are the declared ambitions of the Paris-Saclay project. The University, covering a broad range of disciplines including Life Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics, Information Science and Technology, Physics, and Geosciences, among others, counts today over 65,000 students, 5000 PhD students, and 300 research laboratories. It represents over 15 % of the research workforce in France. This stimulating environment will broaden and strengthen the scientific bases of the ICSN in the near future while offering a clear opportunity to assert its central role in the field of natural products chemistry. All members of the ICSN who have contributed to this paper and especially the ICSN Management Committee members Ali Al-Mourabit, Géraldine Masson, Carine Van Heijenoort, Boris Vauzeilles, and Philippe Durand are warmly acknowledged.

Relevance of research. At both global and regional levels, climate change has become an indisputable fact, the presence of which has posed to humanity the challenge of solving a number of extremely important and complex tasks related to the development and implementation of a strategy for their practical continued existence. Data base on evaporation and water needs for agricultural crops in the different periods of their growing, depending on the climatic conditions, are the basis for the development of design and formation of operational regimes of water regulation carried out by justifying the necessary methods of water regulation, types, structures and modes of operation of hydro-reclamation systems and calculation of their parameters. Aim of the study is to estimate the changes in water needs during crop cultivation on the drained lands of the Western Polissya in Ukraine in the variable climatic, agricultural and ameliorative conditions for the substantiation of appropriate adaptive decisions to it. To achieve this goal, the authors evaluated the weather and climate conditions in the Western Polissya in Ukraine and calculated the evaporation in the studied conditions, planned and carried out a large-scale computer experiment, based on a complex of predictive-simulation models concerning the basic regimes and technological variables of the hydro-reclamation system parameters, climate conditions, water regime, water regulation technologies and the productivity of drained lands for the schematized natural, agricultural and ameliorative conditions. Research methods. The research methods were based on the application of system theory along with the systematic approach, system analysis and modeling oriented on widespread use of computers and related software in developing modern approaches to the substantiation of technical and technological solutions for water regulation on the drained lands in the conditions of climate change. The object of the study is the drainage system “Birky” in Rivne region, typical for the region in relation to the natural land reclamation conditions. Results of the study and the main conclusions. It was established the needs for additional irrigation of cultivated crops on the drained lands of the Western Polissya in Ukraine in the current weather and climatic conditions. Based on the long-term forecast the vegetative values of the total evaporation and the formation of water needs for the drained lands in the variable climatic, agricultural land reclamation conditions were determined. The technological efficiency of different technologies of the irrigation on the drained lands was evaluated. This approach to the estimation of changes in water needs during crop cultivation in the variable climatic, agricultural and ameliorative conditions allows determining the best technology of water regulation for growing a particular crop under the studied conditions in terms of the most rational use of water resources and the efficiency of system functioning. Prospects. The obtained results can be effectively used for justification of regime and technological decisions in the projects of construction and reconstruction of hydro-reclamation systems of the Western Polissya in Ukraine in the variable climate conditions and developing hydro-technical adaptive measures to the predicted climate change in the region.

is dedicated to the Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s Natural Products group. The group meets annually, in the first week of October, for a one-day symposium at a venue in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. This year’s program was held at Southern Cross University (SCU) in Lismore and attracted a large audience from Queensland, as well as NSW, because of Lismore’s proximity to the Queensland border. The most recent program can be found on the web at http://www.chem.mq.edu.au/npg. This collection of seven papers form the proceedings of the 2004 one-day symposia and I would like to thank the authors for their patience and our sponsors Davies Collison Cave, Biosignal, Agilent Technologies, Medos and of course the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) for their generous support. Natural products chemistry has a long history in Australia. In fact, the first chemistry department in the country, at the University of Sydney, was founded on natural products chemistry with such great names as H. G. Smith, Sir Robert Robinson, Ernest Ritchie, W. C. Taylor and Rod Richard, to name just a few. Australia’s unique flora and fauna has assured more or less continuous interest in natural products chemistry in this country, both terrestrially and (more recently) in the marine environment. However, interest in natural products and natural product chemistry has surged in the last year or two and we all hope that this trend continues, spurred on by the new Biotech boom that is focused on the pharmaceutical industry and the quest for new products for human health. The scientific program reflected the current state of natural products chemistry in Australia and the first paper in the special issue, by Ian Southwell, set the scene by outlining the history of natural products research in the Department of Primary Industries over the past 25 years. An historic perspective also opened the Symposium, with a lecture from Peter Waterman, who also opened the 1999 RACI Natural Products Symposium [1]. At that time, Southern Cross University lured Peter from the UK with the promise of a Centre for Phytochemistry (now Centre of Phytochemistry and

Natural products (NPs) are the most historically bountiful source of chemical matter for drug development-especially for anti-infectives. With insights gleaned from genome mining, interest in natural product discovery has been reinvigorated. An essential stage in NP discovery is structural elucidation, which sheds light not only on the chemical composition of a molecule but also its novelty, properties, and derivatization potential. The history of structure elucidation is replete with techniquebased revolutions: combustion analysis, crystallography, UV, IR, MS, and NMR have each provided game-changing advances; the latest such advance is genomics. All natural products have a genetic basis, and the ability to obtain and interpret genomic information for structure elucidation is increasingly available at low cost to non-specialists. In this review, we describe the value of genomics as a structural elucidation technique, especially from the perspective of the natural product chemist approaching an unknown metabolite. Herein we first introduce the databases and programs of interest to the natural products chemist, with an emphasis on those currently most suited for general usability. We describe strategies for linking observed natural product-linked phenotypes to their corresponding gene clusters. We then discuss techniques for extracting structural information from genes, illustrated with numerous case examples. We also provide an analysis of the biases and limitations of the field with recommendations for future development. Our overview is not only aimed at biologically-oriented researchers already at ease with bioinformatic techniques, but also, in particular, at natural product, organic, and/or medicinal chemists not previously familiar with genomic techniques.

Abstract

African trypanosomiasis is a vector-borne parasitic disease causing serious risks to the lives of about 60 million people and 48 million cattle globally. Nigerian medicinal plants are known to contain a large variety of chemical structures and some of the plant extracts have been screened for antitrypanosomal activity, in the search for potential new drugs against the illness. We surveyed the literatures on plants and plant-derived products with antitrypanosomal activity from Nigerian flora published from 1990 to 2014. About 90 plants were identified, with 54 compounds as potential active agents and presented by plant families in alphabetical order. This review indicates that the Nigerian flora may be suitable as a starting point in searching for new and more efficient trypanocidal molecules.

Long before the era of high through-put screening and genomics, drug discovery relied heavily on natural products. Drug discovery involves the identification of New Chemical Entities (NCEs) of potential therapeutic value, which can be obtained through isolation from natural sources, through chemical synthesis or a combination of both. However, the success stories for the discoveries Penicillin from penecilium rubens, Paclitaxel yew tree and marketed as Taxol, Aspirin from Willow bark of Salix alba tree etc. have pave way for scholars in the field of natural product and organic chemistry to focus their research work in drug-derived from plants and microorganisms. Natural products derived from these sources are rich in bioactive compound, which have been use over years throughout human history and evolution as remedies for various ailments. This paper however, X-rayed the sources and classes of natural products, pharmaceuticals derived from Natural product, and uses of natural products. The paper also recommended among others that, government should fund research in the area of natural products, pharmaceutical chemistry and Pharmacognocy.

The chemistry of natural products is fascinating and has continuously attracted the attention of the scientific community for many reasons including, but not limited to, biosynthesis pathways, chemical diversity, the source of bioactive compounds and their marked impact on drug discovery. There is a broad range of experimental and computational techniques (molecular modeling and cheminformatics) that have evolved over the years and have assisted the investigation of natural products. Herein, we discuss cheminformatics strategies to explore the chemistry and applications of natural products. Since the potential synergisms between cheminformatics and natural products are vast, we will focus on three major aspects: (1) exploration of the chemical space of natural products to identify bioactive compounds, with emphasis on drug discovery; (2) assessment of the toxicity profile of natural products; and (3) diversity analysis of natural product collections and the design of chemical collections inspired by natural sources.

Surrogates of foodborne and waterborne protozoan parasites: A review

Natural product chemistry often yields new compounds with great potential for economic and/or health benefits. However, most natural compounds must be artificially synthesized on an industrial scale to generate enough active ingredients to be commercially viable. Thus chemical synthesis is an essential tool of natural product chemistry. Chemical synthesis may be defined as the purposeful execution of a series of chemical reactions in order to obtain a product(s) of interest or to demonstrate important methodologies. Organic synthesis is (unsurprisingly) specifically concerned with the construction of organic compounds, which are often of an exceedingly high level of structural complexity. Each step of any form of chemical synthesis involves a chemical reaction, and the reagents and conditions for each of these need to be designed to give a good yield and a pure product. Here we illustrate this methodology using a simple protocol for the synthesis of the metabolites of the natural product melatonin, the kynurenamines N1-acetyl-N2-formyl-5-methoxykynurenine (K1) and N-acetyl-5-methoxykynurenamine (K2). The four key synthetic transformations involve (a) conversion of 4-methoxy aniline into the tert-butyl (4-methoxyphenyl)carbamate, (b) ortho-lithiation-iodination with tert-butyllithium-1,2-iodoethane, (c) use of the Sonogashira reaction with N-acetyl propargylamine, and (d) sequential alkyne hydration/formylation to give (K1) or alkyne to give (K2).

Natural products chemistry primarily involves research on organic compounds produced by plants, animals, and microorganisms, and focuses not only on the determination of chemical structures and biosynthesis, but also on chemical synthesis and the development of stereoselective chemical reactions. In recent years, developments have spread to the field of molecular biology in particular, as indicated by the investigation of the relationship between the structure and activity of biologically active substances, in addition to the elucidation of the mechanisms of biological effects at the molecular level. These achievements have facilitated corresponding progress in other related sciences, and have contributed significantly to developments in pharmaceutical, agrochemical, and other industries. Meanwhile, the science of biodiversity focuses on objectives such as the search for active ingredients in organisms and the preservation of species and diversity, from a scientific perspective. These two fields are closely related in their respective focuses on the diversity of organisms and the diversity of metabolic products, and it is for this reason that the respective conferences on biodiversity and natural products chemistry have come to be merged, starting with the preceding event in the series, held in India. I believe that this joint approach is highly beneficial, and sincerely hope that this conference has provided opportunities for exchange of a diverse range of information between the respective researchers and has contributed to further global development of these fields. This conference was held at the Kyoto International Conference Hall on 23-28 July 2006, and was officially sponsored by IUPAC and hosted by the Science Council of Japan jointly with the Chemical Society of Japan, the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan, and the Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Agrochemistry. In addition to 17 plenary speakers, lectures were also delivered by 77 invitees of various generations, and 580 posters were presented, primarily by younger delegates, of which 72 were supplemented by oral presentations. In order to broadly examine various topics relating to each aspect of the field of natural products chemistry, discussions were conducted by classifying this diverse field into the following eight themes, thereby promoting interactions between researchers and cooperation between related fields. - Isolation and Structure Elucidation of Natural Products - Synthesis of Natural Products and their Models - Biosynthesis and Genetic Engineering on Natural Products - Spectroscopy in Natural Products Chemistry - Molecular Mode of Action on Natural Products and Drugs - Chemical Biology and Related Areas - Chemistry and Biochemistry Related to Biodiversity - Drug Diversity and Developments Approximately 1200 participants from 31 countries and regions attended this conference, and exhibits from a total of 26 companies were presented in the concurrently held exhibition. In addition, pre- and post-symposia were held in Nagoya, Tokushima, Sapporo, Sendai, Fukuoka, and Tokyo, and the 48th Symposium of a regular series on the Chemistry of Natural Products (in Sendai) also took advantage of the opportunity to promote more diverse and closer interactions. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the aforementioned hosts, co-hosts, and many other organizations and individuals for their support, without which this conference would not have been possible. Finally, it is my sincere hope that this conference has provided opportunities for the future advancement of natural products chemistry and biodiversity science. Daisuke Uemura Chairman, Organizing Committee

This special issue is aimed at collecting together recent developments in the field of natural product analysis. This issue covers methodologies and applications as diverse as secondary metabolite identification to the detection of metals in food stuffs. The chemistry of natural products has gained prominence not only due to the on-going search for new bioactive substances but also in related areas such as food chemistry and chemical ecology. We feel that this special issue represents some of the wide ranging research currently performed in this diverse area and this is exemplified by the affiliations of the authors of the papers included which is made up of chemists, biochemists, biologists, physicists, toxicologists, physiologists, pharmaceutists, and geochemists. What all of these researchers have in common, despite their wide ranging backgrounds, is the need to make use of the powerful techniques of analytical chemistry to analyze natural compounds in complex matrices. Thus, this special issue is dedicated to all the readers that would like to apply analytical chemistry for natural products analysis. This issue presents ten papers, which describe either a specific analytical method for specific types of natural products, the use of natural compounds to aid analytical developments, or modern techniques for the analysis of metals in food stuffs and food quality control (a growing area of interest). The article by L. de S. Ferreira et al. describes the use of hyphenated techniques to determine fatty acids in a species of seaweed from the Fernando de Noronha archipelago. In addition, a second paper has used SRTXRF analysis as a technique to determine several inorganic species within the same archipelago. Both papers contribute to an increased understanding of adsorption and accumulation of such natural elements by algae in that specific area. V. S. A. Devi and V. K. Reddy's paper presents a methodology for spectrophotometric determination of iron(II) and cobalt(II) using 2-hydroxi-1-naphthaldehyde-p-hydroxybenzoichydrazone which can then be applied for the analyses of biological and water samples that contain these metals. The paper by G. C. Lopes et al. reports the preliminary estimation of the stability of the dried extract from the bark of Guazuma ulmifolia Lam. (“Mutamba”). Thermogravimetry analysis along with HPLC were used in the study. The results can be used as a chemical marker in the quality control of dried extracts of G. ulmifolia. The study by M. F. Zampa et al. is the first report of the antimicrobial peptide from the skin of the Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis frog and its incorporation into nanostructured layered films in conjunction with nickel-tetrasulfonated phthalocyanines. The film was used as a biosensor to detect dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. S. B. A. Barros et al. demonstrate the exploitation of the polyelectrolytic behavior of natural cashew gum (Anacardium occidentale L.), found in northeast Brazil, as a component of a nanocomposite electrode. The performance of the electrodes was evaluated by the determination of dopamine. The paper by H. Tanaka et al. presents matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry for the confirmation of the hapten number in synthesized antigens. Two unique applications using MAb, Eastern blotting, and knockout extract have been introduced in this paper. The Eastern blotting method has great potential applications for the wide range of natural products. The article of S. R. de Moraes et al. highlights the use of Lippia sidoides Cham. (also known as alecrim pimenta), native to northeastern Brazil and northern Minas Gerais, and their essential oils. The oxygenated monoterpene 1,8-cineole was the major constituent, followed by isoborneol and bornyl acetate. The chemical composition of essential oils described in this paper differs from that described in the literature for L. sidoides found in its native environment. The paper of M. J. Kato et al. demonstrates the GC-MS monitoring of the major secondary metabolites and fatty acids occurring in the seeds of Virola surinamensis, during germination and seedling development. The authors conclude that the germination of V. surinamensis seeds and the seedling development are processes in which both fatty acids and secondary metabolites (lignans, isoflavonoids and juruenolides) are equally consumed in the seeds indicating their potential physiological role as energy and carbon sources. The article of P. J. Gates and N. P. Lopes describes the application of negative ion chip-based nanospray tandem mass spectrometry for the analysis of flavonoid aglycones. The methodology is tested by the analysis of a crude green tea extract, where the expected flavonoids were readily identified. Norberto P. Lopes Ernani Pinto Michael Niehues Paul J. Gates Ricardo Vessecchi

Endometriosis is caused by the growth or infiltration of endometrial tissues outside of the endometrium and myometrium. Symptoms include pain and infertility. Surgery and hormonal therapy are widely used in Western medicine for the treatment of endometriosis; however, the side effects associated with this practice include disease recurrence and menopause, which can severely influence quality of life. Angiogenesis is the main biological mechanism underlying the development of endometriosis. Numerous natural products and Chinese medicines with potent anti-angiogenic effects have been investigated, and the molecular basis underlying their therapeutic effects in endometriosis has been explored. This review aims to describe natural products and compounds that suppress angiogenesis associated with endometriosis and to assess their diverse molecular mechanisms of action. Furthermore, this review provides a source of information relating to alternative and complementary therapeutic products that mediate anti-angiogenesis. An extensive review of the literature and electronic databases, such as the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, PubMed, and Embase, was conducted using the keywords ‘endometriosis,' ‘traditional Chinese medicine,' ‘Chinese herbal medicine,' ‘natural compounds,' and ‘anti-angiogenic' therapy. Anti-angiogenic therapy is an emerging strategy for the treatment of endometriosis. Natural anti-angiogenic products and Chinese medicines provide several beneficial clinical effects, including pain relief. In this review, we summarize clinical trials and experimental studies of endometriosis using natural products and Chinese medicines. In particular, we focus on anti-angiogenic products and alternative and complementary medicines for the treatment of endometriosis and additionally examine their therapeutic efficacy and mechanisms of action. Anti-angiogenic natural products and/or compounds provide a new approach for the treatment of endometriosis. Future work will require randomized trials with larger numbers of subjects, as well as long-term follow-up to confirm the findings described here.

An important phenomenon of the Polish literature on the turn of the millennia was emergence of many valuable works with religious and metaphysical subject: by Herbert, Milosz, Rozewicz, or John Paul II. It has gained a scholarly reaction in the shape of formation of the trend of research of the issues of relations between literature and religion. The present review essay discusses a number of books by middle generation scholars who are reaching their scholarly independence. The presented monographs examined poets of several periods, from Leśmian (Michal Nawrocki) to Milosz and Rozewicz (Miroslaw Dzien) to Father Ihnatowicz (Alicja Ozog-Jakubowska). The monograph by Father Jerzy Sikora – just as the previous volume – concerns the religious rhetoric, in this case – the preaching of Father Jozef Tischner. The scholars, whose education and skills are not only philological but also theological and philosophic, have presented various analytic techniques and interpretation theories

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