Cyclotides are a fascinating family of plant-derived peptides characterized by their head-to-tail cyclized backbone and knotted arrangement of three disulfide bonds. This conserved structural architecture, termed the CCK (cyclic cystine knot), is responsible for their exceptional resistance to thermal, chemical and enzymatic degradation. Cyclotides have a variety of biological activities, but t...

Specialists studying the genus Viola have consistently allied the Hawaiian violets comprising section Nosphinium--most of which are subshrubs or treelets--with putatively primitive subshrubs in certain South American violet groups. Hawaiian violets also possess inflorescences, a floral disposition otherwise found only in other genera of the Violaceae, thus strengthening the hypothesis of a very...

Natural substances extracted from plants have recently been considered as potential sunscreen resources because of their ultraviolet ray absorption in the UVA region and their antioxidant activity. In the present study, the UV protective effects of ethyl acetate extracts of some common medicinal plants, which have flavonoids and other phenolics as the most important components, were evaluated u...