Current Organic Chemistry - Volume 14, Issue 16, 2010

Plants are the fundamental basis of sophisticated traditional medicines for thousands of years, and continue to be used as valuable medicinal materials in countries where conventional medicine is an important part of the national health care system. During the last decade, medicinal plants, with the characteristics of multiple constituents, multiple actions, and multiple targets, have expanded globally and gained consid Read More

Plants and other natural sources have been useful in discovering drugs for treating patients with diabetes mellitus. Examples include the α-glucosidase inhibitor acarbose, and galegine, which contributed to the discovery and development of the biguanides. There are many traditionally used herbal medicines that lower blood glucose in experimental models, and, currently, there is considerable interest in exploring these Read More

Determination of absolute configuration (AC) is one of the most challenging features in the structure elucidation of chiral natural products, especially those with complex structures. With revolutionary advancements in the area of quantum chemical calculations of chiroptical spectroscopy over the past decade, the time dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) calculation of electronic circular dichroism (E Read More

Natural products have served as major sources of drugs for centuries, and about half of the pharmaceuticals in use today are derived from natural products. Therefore, screening and analysis of the bioactive components in medicinal plants are now indispensable for the discovery of new drugs and quality control of plant pharmaceuticals. Sample preparation is essential for isolating desired components from complex matrices a Read More

Many Chinese herbs have been tested against herpes simplex virus (HSV) in search for new anti-herpetic agents. Extracts and novel molecules such as polysaccharides, tannins, terpenes, lignans, saponins, lectins and flavonoids have been found to be effective as anti-herpetic agents. Using different in vitro and in vivo models, novel compounds isolated from Chinese herbal medicines (CHM) have been tested and demonstrat Read More

Polyphenols such as flavonoids and stilbenes are abundant in our daily diet, and their roles in the protection and prevention of various diseases are substantial. However, bioavailability varies among polyphenols and the actual compounds acting on the designated tissues are often not the native molecules consumed in the diet. Hereby, we review the bioavailabilty of the main classes of stilbenes and flavonoids, namely flavanones Read More

Modern gas chromatography, with the development of advanced analytical techniques, has become a fundamental tool for the separation and characterization of plant extracts. These last issues are absolutely important if considering the widespread use of plant derivatives not only in pharmaceutical/food industry but also, for a large part, in traditional and alternative medicine, which require a high level of quality and s Read More

This review focuses on the application and implication of CEC for natural product analysis, with special emphasis on reports published after 2005. The basic concepts and principles of CEC are outlined, and the techniques advantages and disadvantages are discussed in context with the available stationary phase format. Special attention is given to the application of packed beds and monolithic formats of CEC with both si Read More

Plant-derived natural products have been an important source of several clinically useful anti-cancer agents. Plants continue to play a major role in drug discovery as evidenced by the number of promising new agents in clinical development based on selective activity against cancer-related molecular targets. Due to improvements in tumor targeting technology, some agents which failed in earlier clinical studies are also stim Read More

Radix Astragali (Astragalus) has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for over 2000 years, and still widely used in Asian countries to enhance the immune system and to protect the body against various stresses. In Europe and the United States, Astragalus is commonly used as nutritional dietary supplements and additives to foods and beverages. During the last several years, we have witnessed a steady expansion in the n Read More

Thanks to the important advances registered over the last decade in analytical techniques, profiling methods for the analysis of crude extracts from plant origin or from other biological sources have evolved into powerful tools for dereplication, quality assessment and metabolomics. Metabolite profiling of crude extracts represents a challenging analytical task since these mixtures are composed of hundreds of natural Read More

harmacokinetic studies have become an integral part of modern drug development, but these studies are not regulatory needs for herbal remedies. This paper highlights the pharmacokinetic properties and disposition pathways of commonly used plant natural products and the possible clinical and toxicological implications. For a plant natural product, the pharmacological effect is achieved when the bioactive agents or t Read More