There is an increased need for new drug leads to treat diseases in humans, animals and plants. A dramatic example is represented by the need for novel and more effective antibiotics to combat multidrug-resistant microbial pathogens. Natural products represent a major source of approved drugs and still play an important role in supplying chemical diversity, despite a decreased interest by large ...

Aquatics are a source of bioactive compounds that these compounds have different properties such as antimicrobial activity. In this study, antibacterial activity of methanol, chloroform and hexane extracts from body wall, gonad and intestine of sea cucumber Holothuria leucospilota was evaluated against Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. Bioactive compounds of b...

Introduction. – Chiral 5-hydroxy-g-butyrolactones constitute an important class of natural products and have received considerable attention due to their interesting wide range of biological activities [1]. These compounds have found applications as insect anti-feedants [2], cytotoxic agents [3], and flavor constituents in wine, sherry, and tobacco smoke [4]. They also serve as important precur...

Biodiversity in the marine environment exceeds that of the terrestrial environment. But exploration of marine natural products is still in the infant stage. Among the diverse bioactive compounds which are discovered from marine organisms, sponges have been assigned a high priority as they have been accepted as a promising organism for the discovery of pharmacologically active drug leads. Marine...

Grapevine stilbenes, particularly trans-resveratrol, have a demonstrated pharmacological activity. Other natural stilbenes derived from resveratrol such as pterostilbene or piceatannol, display higher oral bioavailability and bioactivity than the parent compound, but are far less abundant in natural sources. Thus, to efficiently obtain these bioactive resveratrol derivatives, there is a need to...

A bioassay-directed phytochemical study was carried out to investigate potential allelochemicals of the invasive plant Merremia umbellata subsp. orientalis (Hall. f.). Eight phenolic compounds, including a salicylic acid (SA)-derived new natural product, SA 2-O-β-D-(3',6'-dicaffeoyl)-glucopyranoside (1), and seven known ones 2-8 were isolated and identified from two bioactive sub-fractions of t...

In the course of our continuing efforts to identify bioactive secondary metabolites from Red Sea marine invertebrates, we have investigated the sponge Hemimycale arabica. The antimicrobial fraction of an organic extract of the sponge afforded two new hydantoin alkaloids, hemimycalins A and B (2 and 3), together with the previously reported compound (Z)-5-(4-hydroxybenzylidene)imidazolidine-2,4-...

Importance of herbal medicines have recently increased owing to rising interest in their health benefits. However, medicinal plant extracts are complex mixtures of phytochemicals that act synergistically or additively on specific and/or multiple molecular and cellular targets. Thus, it is difficult to examine the actual pharmacological roles of active compounds in plant extracts. This review de...

Honokiol [3,5-di-(2-propenyl)-1,1-biphenyl-2,2-diol; HNK], a natural bioactive molecular compound isolated from the Magnolia officinalis, exhibits potent antitumor activity against a variety of human cancer cell lines. However, few studies have reported the antineoplastic effects of HNK on glioblastoma cells. It remains unknown how apoptosis is induced by HNK in glioblastoma cells and through w...

Curcumin (CUR) is a phenolic compound present in some herbs, including Curcuma longa Linn. (turmeric rhizome), with high bioactive capacity and characteristic yellow color. It mainly used as spice, although it has been found that CUR interesting pharmaceutical properties, acting natural antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antitumoral agent. Nonetheless, hydrophobic low water solubili...