Phytochemical constituents, bioactivities, and applications of custard apple (Annona squamosa L.): A narrative review.

Annona squamosa L. (Annonaceae) is a versatile tree with an edible fruit showing abundant medicinal and industrial applications. The nutritional values of this plant are due to carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, and vitamins. Ethnopharmacological uses referred to treatment of dysentery, headlice, cancer sores, purgative, and tonic effects. The main reported biological activities for A. squamosa L. were cytotoxic, antidiabetic, antimicrobial, antiparasitic, antioxidant, antimalarial, molluscidal, anthelmintic and insecticidal activities, and its chemical classes encompassed alkaloids, diterpenes, acetogenins, and cyclopeptides. The nutritional content of A. squamosa L. and their main chemical components, biological effects, and the different applications were discussed in this review. This comprehensive review strived to compile all the relevant data in the period between 1990 and 2023 covering databases PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Googlescholar and Reaxys concerning A. squamosa L. different parts with their reported phytochemical constituents and biological activities to integrate a better understanding of the medicinal values.

Phytoconstituents with cardioprotective properties: A pharmacological overview on their efficacy against myocardial infarction.

Myocardial infarction (MI) is considered one of the most common cardiac diseases and major cause of death worldwide. The prevalence of MI and MI-associated mortality have been increasing in recent years due to poor lifestyle habits viz. residency, obesity, stress, and pollution. Synthetic drugs for the treatment of MI provide good chance of survival; however, the demand to search more safe, effective, and natural drugs is increasing. Plants provide fruitful sources for powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents for prevention and/or treatment of MI. However, many plant extracts lack exact information about their possible dosage, toxicity and drug interactions which may hinder their usefulness as potential treatment options. Phytoconstituents play cardioprotective role by either acting as a prophylactic or adjuvant therapy to the concurrently used synthetic drugs to decrease the dosage or relief the side effects of such drugs. This review highlights the role of different herbal formulations, examples of plant extracts and types of several isolated phytoconstituents (phenolic acids, flavonoids, stilbenes, alkaloids, phenyl propanoids) in the prevention of MI with reported activities. Moreover, their possible mechanisms of action are also discussed to guide future research for the development of safer substitutes to manage MI.

Variation of the essential oil components of Citrus aurantium leaves upon using different distillation techniques and evaluation of their antioxidant, antidiabetic, and neuroprotective effect against Alzheimer's disease.

Citrus fruit essential oil is considered one of the widely studied essential oils while its leaves attract less attention although being rich in nearly the same composition as the peel and flowers. The leaves of bitter orange or sour orange (Citrus aurantium L.) were extracted using three different techniques namely; hydrodistillation (HD), steam distillation (SD), and microwave-assisted distillation (MV) to compare their chemical composition. The three essential oil samples were analyzed through GC/FID and GC/MS analyses. The samples were tested in vitro using different antioxidant techniques (DPPH, ABTS, CUPRAC, FRAP, PBD, and MCA), neuroprotective enzyme inhibitory activities (acetylcholine and butyl choline enzymes), and antidiabetic activities (α-amylase and α-glucosidase). The results showed that thirty-five volatile ingredients were detected and quantified. Monoterpenes represented the most abundant class in the three essential oils followed by sesquiterpenes. C. aurantium essential oil carried potential antioxidant activity where SD exhibited the highest antioxidant activity, with values arranged in the following order: FRAP (200.43 mg TE/g), CUPRAC (138.69 mg TE/g), ABTS (129.49 mg TE/g), and DPPH (51.67 mg TE/g). SD essential oil also presented the most potent α-amylase (0.32) inhibition while the MV essential oil showed the highest α-glucosidase inhibition (2.73 mmol ACAE/g), followed by HD (2.53 mmol ACAE/g), and SD (2.46 mmol ACAE/g). The SD essential oil exhibited the highest BChE and AChE inhibitory activities (3.73 and 2.06 mg GALAE/g), respectively). Thus, bitter orange essential oil can act as a potential source of potent antioxidant, antidiabetic, and neuroprotective activities for future drug leads.

Role of Nutraceuticals in Obesity Management: A Mechanism and Prospective Supported by Molecular Docking Studies.

Obesity and its comorbidities represent a major health problem worldwide. Treatment by reducing food intake and physical activity interventions has limited success especially with elderly people with chronic diseases. Nutraceuticals are naturally originated and successfully used for their physiological and nutritional benefit in health care. They might be alternative means to help lose weight and reduce obesity-associated metabolic disorders with the improvement of health, delay the aging process, prevention of chronic diseases, increase of life expectancy, or support to the structure or function of the body. The current study enumerates the inherent role of nutraceuticals in the management of obesity and its related comorbidities. The study is supported with the molecular docking studies discussing the mechanism of action. An attempt to optimize the role of nutraceuticals is made in this article in addition to widen the scope of its use in this chronic worldwide disease.

Genus Curcuma: chemical and ethnopharmacological role in aging process.

Aging or senescence is part of human life development with many effects on the physical, mental, and physiological aspects which may lead to age-related deterioration in many organs. Genus Curcuma family Zingieraceae represents one of the well-studied and medically important genera with more than eighty species. The genus is reported to contain different classes of biologically active compounds that are mainly presented in diphenylheptanoids, diphenylpentanoids, diphenylalkanoids, phenylpropene derivatives, alkaloids, flavonoids, chromones, terpenoids, phenolic acids and volatile constituents. Rhizomes and roots of such species are rich with main phytoconstituents viz. curcumin, demethoxycurcumin and bis-demethoxycurcumin. A wide variety of biological activities were demonstrated for different extracts and essential oils of genus Curcuma members including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, cytotoxic and neuroprotective. Thus, making them as an excellent safe source for nutraceutical products and as a continuous promising area of research on lead compounds that may help in the slowing down of the aging process especially the neurologic and mental deterioration that are usually experienced upon aging. In this review different species of the genus Curcuma were summarized with their phytochemical and biological activities highlighting their role as antiaging agents. The data were collected from different search engines viz. Pubmed®, Google Scholar®, Scopus® and Web of Science® limiting the search to the period between 2003 up till now.

UPLC/ESI/MS profiling of red algae Galaxaura rugosa extracts and its activity against malaria mosquito vector, Anopheles pharoensis, with reference to Danio rerio and Daphnia magna as bioindicators.

BACKGROUND: Anopheles pharoensis has a major role in transmitting several human diseases, especially malaria, in Egypt?. Controlling Anopheles is considered as an effective strategy to eliminate the spread of malaria worldwide. Galaxaura rugosa is a species of red algae found in tropical to subtropical marine environments. The presence of G. rugosa is indicative of the ecosystem's overall health. The current work aims to investigate UPLC/ESI/MS profile of G. rugosa methanol and petroleum ether extracts and its activity against An. pharoensis and non-target organisms, Danio rerio and Daphnia magna. METHODS: Galaxaura rugosa specimens have been identified using DNA barcoding for the COI gene and verified as G. rugosa. The UPLC/ESI/MS profiling of G. rugosa collected from Egypt was described. The larvicidal and repellent activities of G. rugosa methanol and petroleum ether extracts against An. pharoensis were evaluated, as well as the toxicity of tested extracts on non-target organisms, Dan. rerio and Dap. magna. RESULTS: The UPLC/ESI/MS analysis of methanol and petroleum ether extracts led to the tentative identification of 57 compounds belonging to different phytochemical classes, including flavonoids, tannins, phenolic acids, phenyl propanoids. Larval mortality was recorded at 93.33% and 90.67% at 80 and 35 ppm of methanol and petroleum ether extracts, respectively, while pupal mortality recorded 44.44 and 22.48% at 35 and 30 ppm, respectively. Larval duration was recorded at 5.31 and 5.64 days by methanol and petroleum ether extracts at 80 and 35 ppm, respectively. A decrease in acetylcholinesterase (AChE) level and a promotion in Glutathione-S-transferase (GST) level of An. pharoensis 3rd instar larvae were recorded by tested extracts. The petroleum ether extract was more effective against An. pharoensis starved females than methanol extract. Also, tested extracts recorded LC50 of 1988.8, 1365.1, and 11.65, 14.36 µg/mL against Dan. rerio, and Dap. magna, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Using red algae derivatives in An. pharoensis control could reduce costs and environmental impact and be harmless to humans and other non-target organisms.

Aspergillus co-cultures: A recent insight into their secondary metabolites and microbial interactions.

There is an urgent need for novel antibiotics to combat emerging resistant microbial strains. One of the most pressing resources is Aspergillus microbial cocultures. The genome of Aspergillus species comprises a far larger number of novel gene clusters than previously expected, and novel strategies and approaches are essential to exploit this potential source of new drugs and pharmacological agents. This is the first review consulting recent developments and chemical diversity of Aspergillus cocultures and highlighting its untapped richness. The analyzed data revealed that cocultivation of several Aspergillus species with other microorganisms, including bacteria, plants, and fungi, is a source of novel bioactive natural products. Various vital chemical skeleton leads were newly produced or augmented in Aspergillus cocultures, among which were taxol, cytochalasans, notamides, pentapeptides, silibinin, and allianthrones. The possibility of mycotoxin production or complete elimination in cocultivations was detected, which pave the way for better decontamination strategies. Most cocultures revealed a remarkable improvement in their antimicrobial or cytotoxic behavior due to their produced chemical patterns; for instance, weldone and asperterrin whose antitumor and antibacterial activities, respectively, were superior. Microbial cocultivation elicited the upregulation or production of specific metabolites whose importance and significance are yet to be revealed. With more than 155 compounds isolated from Aspergillus cocultures in the last 10 years, showing overproduction, reduction, or complete suppression under the optimized coculture circumstances, this study filled a gap for medicinal chemists searching for new lead sources or bioactive molecules as anticancer agents or antimicrobials.

Phytochemical Constituents, Folk Medicinal Uses, and Biological Activities of Genus Angelica: A Review.

Genus Angelica is one of the widely distributed and well-known genera of family Umbelliferae. It is utilized mainly by Chinese and Korean populations especially in their folk medicine. Angelica comprises a lot of medicinally important phytoconstituents such as coumarins, furanocoumarins, flavonoids, essential oils, verbascosides, polysaccharides, etc. Members of this genus play important roles, namely antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-diabetic, skin-whitening, cytotoxic, hepatoprotective, and many others. This review draws attention to many species of genus Angelica with much focus on A. dahurica being one of the highly medicinally used species within this genus.

Metabolomic Profiles of Essential Oils from Selected Rosa Varieties and Their Antimicrobial Activities.

This study aimed to analyze the essential oils of the aerial parts (A) and flowers (F) of Rosa banksiae var. banksiae Ait. (RBW), Rosa polyantha Thunb. "orange fairy" (RPO) and Rosa polyantha Thunb. "white fairy" (RPW), family Rosaceae, and perform multivariate data analyses and antimicrobial activity evaluations. The essential oil analyses were performed by GC/FID and GC/MS. Principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), and clustered heat map were used for the multivariate analyses. The antimicrobial activity was evaluated by the well-diffusion method against four bacteria and four fungi. Two hundred fifty-three compounds were identified from the six oil samples. The major components in RBW-A, RPO-A, and RPW-A were n-undecane (14.40, 19.36, and 9.21%) n-dodecane (14.54, 22.13, and 8.39%), and yomogi alcohol (8.41, 10.53, and 6.28%), respectively, whereas RBW-F, RPO-F and RPW-F contained n-heptadecane (16.70%), n-undecane (7.98%), and ß-phellandrene (22.78%), respectively. The tested essential oils showed moderate antifungal activity against Aspergillus fumigatus compared to amphotericin B. PCA and HCA revealed five main clusters. The six samples carried close chemical profiles and can be regarded as fruitful sources of safe antifungal agents.