Ferulic acid as major antioxidant phenolic compound of the Tetragonisca angustula honey collected in Vera Cruz - Itaparica Island, Bahia, Brazil

Rational Design of Multifunctional Ferulic Acid Derivatives Aimed for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases

Ferulic acid has numerous beneficial effects on human health, which are frequently attributed to its antioxidant behavior. In this report, many of them are reviewed, and 185 new ferulic acid derivatives are computationally designed using the CADMA-Chem protocol. Consequently, their chemical space was sampled and evaluated. To that purpose, selection and elimination scores were used, which are built from a set of descriptors accounting for ADME properties, toxicity, and synthetic accessibility. After the first screening, 12 derivatives were selected and further investigated. Their potential role as antioxidants was predicted from reactivity indexes directly related to the formal hydrogen atom transfer and the single electron transfer mechanisms. The best performing molecules were identified by comparisons with the parent molecule and two references: Trolox and α-tocopherol. Their potential as polygenic neuroprotectors was investigated through the interactions with enzymes directly related to the etiologies of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. These enzymes are acetylcholinesterase, catechol-O-methyltransferase, and monoamine oxidase B. Based on the obtained results, the most promising candidates (FA-26, FA-118, and FA-138) are proposed as multifunctional antioxidants with potential neuroprotective effects. The findings derived from this investigation are encouraging and might promote further investigations on these molecules.

A review on the phytochemical composition and health applications of honey

Background

Though honey has long been used as medicine, there is a scarcity of knowledge on how it interacts with the body.

Scope and approach

While different types of honey have different chemical and medicinal properties according to their origin, this narrative review seeks to analyse the current knowledge on the chemical composition and therapeutic use of honey. With numerous chemical components, honey has a range of health benefits in multiple disciplines of medicine, and provides an interesting prospect in chemical analysis with regards to identification of its origin.

Key findings and conclusions

There is a great potential for the use of honey in medicine, primarily due to its antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. Recent studies on the phenolic and enzymatic components of honey have made honey's therapeutic method of action in relation to the above properties clearer, still more research needs to be conducted and more innovations need to be tested, for the full potential of honey to be understood.

Phenolic Constituents from Wendlandia tinctoria var. grandis (Roxb.) DC. Stem Deciphering Pharmacological Potentials against Oxidation, Hyperglycemia, and Diarrhea: Phyto-Pharmacological and Computational Approaches

Wendlandia tinctoria var. grandis (Roxb.) DC. (Family: Rubiaceae) is a semi-evergreen shrub distributed over tropical and subtropical Asia. The present research intended to explore the pharmacological potential of the stem extract of W. tinctoria, focusing on the antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and antidiarrheal properties, and to isolate various secondary metabolites as mediators of such activities. A total of eight phenolic compounds were isolated from the dichloromethane soluble fraction of the stem extract of this plant, which were characterized by electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometric and ¹H NMR spectroscopic data as liquiritigenin (1), naringenin (2), apigenin (3), kaempferol (4), glabridin (5), ferulic acid (6), 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (7), and 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde (8). The dichloromethane soluble fraction exhibited the highest phenolic content (289.87 ± 0.47 mg of GAE/g of dried extract) and the highest scavenging activity (IC₅₀ = 18.83 ± 0.07 µg/mL) against the DPPH free radical. All of the isolated compounds, except 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, exerted a higher antioxidant effect (IC₅₀ = 6.20 ± 0.10 to 16.11 ± 0.02 μg/mL) than the standard butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) (IC₅₀ = 17.09 ± 0.01 μg/mL). Significant hypoglycemic and antidiarrheal activities of the methanolic crude extract at both doses (200 mg/kg bw and 400 mg/kg bw) were observed in a time-dependent manner. Furthermore, the computational modeling study supported the current in vitro and in vivo findings, and the isolated constituents had a higher or comparable binding affinity for glutathione reductase and urase oxidase enzymes, glucose transporter 3 (GLUT 3), and kappa-opioid receptor, inferring potential antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and antidiarrheal properties, respectively. This is the first report of all of these phenolic compounds being isolated from this plant species and even the first demonstration of the plant stem extract’s antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and antidiarrheal potentials. According to the current findings, the W. tinctoria stem could be a potential natural remedy for treating oxidative stress, hyperglycemia, and diarrhea. Nevertheless, further extensive investigation is crucial for thorough phytochemical screening and determining the precise mechanisms of action of the plant-derived bioactive metabolites against broad-spectrum molecular targets.