Phytochemistry Reviews最新文献

In Qatar, three main species of Pulicaria (from Asteraceae) such as Pulicaria undulata (L.) C.A.Mey, Pulicaria gnaphalodes (Vent.) Boiss. and Pulicaria sicula (L.) Moris are reported. Traditionally, these species have almost the same ethnomedical uses, including their use as herbal tea. This could be because of morphological similarities among some of these species, which also results in taxonomic ambiguity. Altogether, this indicates that these species need to be reviewed comparatively, to understand the phytochemical uniqueness and therapeutic significance of each species individually, including species differentiation at the subspecies level. Hence, this review aims to comparatively review the available literature about traditional uses, phytochemistry, and bio-activities of these species. Being aromatic plants, the chemical composition of essential oils of these species has been extensively studied and reported over 300 volatile organic compounds. Among these, oxygenated monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes are dominant. The diverse and distinguishable composition of essential oils can differentiate P. undulata and Pulicaria crispa (Forssk.) Oliv. (Synonyme: Pulicaria undulata subsp. undulata). Likewise, flavonoids and sesquiterpenes are the most reported classes of compounds in non-essential oil fractions. Various biological and pharmacological activities are reported to the essential oils, crude extracts, and their fractions, or isolated compounds of these species. Among these, antimicrobial, anticancer, and anti-oxidant activities were mostly investigated, mainly under in vitro conditions. Several distinguishable compounds are listed for each species that can potentially be used as chemical markers while characterizing these species. Most of the traditional claims of these species are validated in recent scientific studies. However, further detailed in vivo clinical interventions are needed for their potential use as therapeutic agents.

The mechanism of decline in continuous plantations is currently a popular research topic in forestry. Continuous cropping is a common obstacle in poplar production and management, and maintaining productivity is a technical challenge. Recent studies have shown that continuous cropping of poplars leads to a reduction in biomass, but there is a lack of information summarizing the effects of plant secondary compounds on belowground interactions. This paper explores the allelopathic phenomenon, which refers to the inhibitory or promoting effects of poplar tissue extracts on plants. The paper also considers the environmental behaviors of allelochemicals derived from poplars, including their secretion, degradation, adsorption, retention, and phytotoxicity. A conceptual model of the autotoxicity mechanism of continuous cropping poplar is proposed from three aspects: microorganisms, soil enzymes, and nutrient changes, with the goal of overcoming poplar autotoxicity. Finally, the research results and potential application prospects of biotechnological methods related to the allelopathic effects of poplar are presented.

A wide range of natural products important for the engineering and drug design of pharmaceuticals comprise largely of nitrogen-based heterocycles. Fungal natural products have proven to be a rich source of the industrially-important molecules, many of which are promising drug leads. Although, natural products containing a phthalimidine core tends not to be given distant classification, but compounds containing these structures exhibit antimicrobial, anthelmintic, antimalarial and insecticidal activities, and are among the potential target for discovering new drug candidates. Intriguingly, these are primarily isolated from fungal sources and to a very lesser extent from plants or bacteria. This review surveys fungal-derived phthalimidine metabolites published until the end of 2022, isolated from both terrestrial and aquatic or marine sources with emphasis on their unique chemistry, bioactivities, biogenesis and taxonomic classification. Their unique chemistry and diverse bioactivities (including antiviral, antiproliferative, antioxidant and antimicrobial) provide a chemical library with high medicinal potential, representing a treasure trove for synthetic chemists.

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Anthocyanins, a sub-class of polyphenolic secondary metabolites, are the subject of research in numerous pharmacological chemical studies and food industries. These molecules exhibit a wide array of pharmacological benefits own fascinating different molecular architectures and reflect colorful hues, which have made them popular targets for their studies. The potential application of anthocyanins (natural pigment) has attracted numerous widespread industrial interest. The beautiful colorant unveiled by anthocyanins has widened the scope of anthocyanin applications in food. This review summarizes the isolation of more than 200 new anthocyanins during 2010–2023 along with a discussion of their structural diversities, structural elucidation, biosynthetic pathway and more importantly, their industrial relevance in food. These molecules are classified into acylated anthocyanins and non-acylated anthocyanins, which are further divided according to their substitution pattern i.e. O-methylated anthocyanins, 3-deoxyanthocyanins. These are systematized into their derivative viz. pyranoanthocyanins, pyranoanthocyanins dimers, and metalloanthocyanins. The present review also focuses on the structural characterization of anthocyanins by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

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Medicinal plants are used by many of the global population because they are safe and effective alternative to other treatments. Over the last few decades, using plant cells to produce natural or recombinant chemicals of economic interest has become a great intention. Secondary metabolites are recognized to have a significant role in plant adaptation to their environment and are also a valuable source of medication. The increasing economic importance of secondary metabolites has recently sparked a lot of interest in biotransformation, particularly in using tissue culture techniques to modify the production of bioactive plant metabolites. Plants of the family Amaryllidaceae have been used to extract several different alkaloids, each of which has the potential to be involved in a variety of pharmacological processes. Due to its multiple biological functions and divergent structure, lycorine has received significant interest in the medicinal field. Lycorine and other alkaloids from the Amaryllidaceae family have limited bioavailability by nature. In vitro culture provides an alternate method for producing lycorine sustainably due to the pharmaceutical industries dramatically increasing demand for it and the insufficient availability of natural resources. Many medicinal plants have been reported to produce lycorine in vitro in plant cell suspension cultures, and bioreactors play an effective role in their commercial production. This article focuses on the production of lycorine in in vitro systems from plants and its potential in the treatment of cancer. This study  also aims  to provide different biotechnological strategies  for the  production of this important alkaloid using in vitro system.