Medicinal plants play a crucial role in traditional medicine and in the maintenance of human health worldwide. Sesquiterpene lactones represent an interesting group of plant-derived compounds that are currently being tested as lead drugs in cancer clinical trials. Achillea falcata is a medicinal plant indigenous to the Middle Eastern region and belongs to the Asteraceae family, which is known t...

Medicinal plants have been widely employed in treating various diseases for centuries and are still a major resource and repository that can be further exploited for a variety of infectious and non-infectious ailments. The popularity of medicinal herbs has grown significantly in recent years despite a dearth of information regarding their modes of action and continuing concerns over their effic...

Parthenium hysterophorus known as congress grass belongs to the family compositae. Direct contact with plant and plant parts, living or dead, result in dermatitis in mankind. Presence of pollen in air causes diseases, like fever and asthma (Kaur and Sharma, 1986; Lonkar et al., 1974; Rodriguez, 1975; Rodriguez et al., 1976a and b; Shen et al., 1976; Subba Rao et al., 1976, 1978). Live stocks ar...

Compounds that inhibit aromatase activity are used for the treatment of breast cancer. A group of sesquiterpene lactones inhibit aromatase activity and also exert cytotoxicity through their reactive alpha-methylene-gamma-lactone group. To synthesize sesquiterpene lactones with greater specificity for aromatase inhibition and lower cytotoxicity, we chemically reduced the alpha-methylene-gamma-la...

BACKGROUND Terpenoids and isoprenoids are an important class of natural products, which includes currently used drugs, high value bioactive and industrial compounds, and fuel candidates. Due to their industrial application, there is increasing interest in the development of S. cerevisiae strains capable of producing high levels of terpenoids. RESULTS Aiming to identify new gene targets which ...

Plants and plant extracts play a crucial role in the research into novel antineoplastic agents. Four sesquiterpene lactones, artecanin (1), 3β-chloro-4α,10α-dihydroxy-1α,2α-epoxy-5α,7αH-guaia-11(13)-en-12,6α-olide (2), iso-seco-tanapartholide 3-O-methyl ether (3) and 4β,15-dihydro-3-dehydrozaluzanin C (4), were isolated from two traditionally used Asteraceae species (Onopordum acanthium and Art...

Terpenoids, the largest class of plant secondary metabolites, play essential roles in both plant and human life. In higher plants, the five-carbon building blocks of all terpenoids, isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) and dimethylallyl diphosphate, are derived from two independent pathways localized in different cellular compartments. The methylerythritol phosphate (MEP or nonmevalonate) pathway, loc...

Objective: To assess the inhibition activity of sesquiterpene lactones from Vernonia amygdalina Delile as a new anticancer potential on expression cancer therapeutic target-proteins, namely: epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), and vascular endothelial (VEGFR). Methods: The in silico screening, target‐based approach (docking) was performed by Prediction Activity Spectra for Substances (PASS...

The genus Anthemis L., assigned by Bremer (1994) to the tribe Anthemideae (subtribe Anthemidinae) of the Asteraceae, comprises ca. 210 species. The Anthemidinae consist of the genus Anthemis with provisional addition of the monotypic genus NanantheaDC (Bremer, 1994). Anthemis wiedemanniana Fisch. & C.A. Mey. (section Cota) is an endemic species distributed in the Mediterranean, the Middle and t...