The brine shrimp (Artemia salina Leach) lethality bioassay offers an advantage in standardization and quality control of botanical products. This test is well correlated with antitumor activity (cytotoxicity) and can be used to monitor the activity of bioactive natural products. This paper reports the bioactivity of ethanol extracts from seven medicinal plants from the Northeast of Brazil (Acme...

The toxic profile of lawsone (2-hydroxy-[1,4]naphthoquinone) and a series of [1,4]naphthoquinone derivatives was evaluated against the brine shrimp Artemia salina and against the mollusk Biomphalaria glabrata, the main transmitting vector of schistosomiasis in Brazil. Of the seventeen compounds tested nine fell below the threshold of 100 microg/mL set for potential molluscicidal activity by the...

Three steroids, namely 24-ethyl-5α-cholestan-3-one (1), 5α-stigmast-22-en-3-one (2), stigmast-5, 22-dien-3-one (3) have been isolated from N. stellata. The phytochemical and antimicrobial as well as cytotoxic activities of Nymphaea stellata were investigated in this study. Crude extracts of N. stellata and various column fractions exhibited poor antimicrobial activity against a wide range of Gr...

Lupeol (1), epilupeol (2) and β-sitosterol (3) were isolated from the n-hexane and the carbon tetrachloride soluble fraction of a methanol extract of the leaves of Phoenix paludosa Roxb. The n-hexane, carbon tetrachloride and chloroform soluble materials from the concentrated methanol extract were subjected to antimicrobial screening and brine shrimp lethality bioassay. All of the partitionates...

OBJECTIVES Mindium laevigatum is an endemic plant of Iran and Turkey and is widely used as blood purifier, antiasthma and antidyspnea in traditional medicine. Chemical composition of volatile materials of the plant and its antioxidant, antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities were reported in this study. MATERIALS AND METHODS Simultaneous distillation-extraction (SDE) and GC-Mass-FID analysis w...

In the study of bioactive substances in Illicium plants, the methanol extract of I. merrillianum showed brine shrimp lethality test (BST) activity at 200 microg/ml. Bioassay-guided fractionation of the BST active fractions resulted in the isolation of 4-O-methyleudesm-11-en-4alpha-ol, eudesmol-11-en-4alpha-ol and (-)-hinokinin as potent BST active compounds. On the other hand, four new highly o...

In addition to 13 known compounds, four new bisabolane sesquiterpenes, okamurenes A-D (1-4), a new chamigrane derivative, okamurene E (5), and a new C₁₂-acetogenin, okamuragenin (6), were isolated from the marine red alga Laurencia okamurai. The structures of these compounds were determined through detailed spectroscopic analyses. Of these, okamurenes A and B (1 and 2) are the first examples of...

Synthesis of novel phenacyl derivatives of alkyl piperidine as cytotoxic agents via simple and single step reaction procedure is going to be reported here. Twelve new compounds were successfully synthesized in moderate yield and in solid form. Their synthesis was confirmed by TLC, melting point, CHN analysis and through different spectral studies such as UV, IR, Mass and proton NMR. The advanta...

Three new indolediketopiperazine peroxides, namely, 24-hydroxyverruculogen (1), 26-hydroxyverruculogen (2), and 13-O-prenyl-26-hydroxyverruculogen (3), along with four known homologues (4-7), were isolated and identified from the culture extract of the marine sediment-derived fungus Penicillium brefeldianum SD-273. Their structures were determined based on the extensive spectroscopic analysis a...

Endophytic fungi are fungi that colonize internal tissues of plants; several biologically active compounds have been isolated from these fungi. There are few studies of compounds isolated from endophytic fungi of Amazon plants. Thus, this study aimed the isolation and structural identification of ergosterol (1), ergosterol peroxide (2), mevalonolactone (3), cytochalasin B (4) and cytochalasin H...