Natural bioactive

Carmen Socaciu was bom in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and earned a BSc in chemistry in 1976, an MSc in 1977, and a PhD in 1986 from the University Babes-Bolyai in Cluj-Napoca, an important academic centre located in the Transylvania region. Dr. Socaciu worked as a researcher in medical and cellular biochemistry for more than 10 years, and became a lecturer in 1990 and full professor in 1998 in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine (USAMV) in Cluj-Napoca. She extended her academic background in pure chemistry (synthesis and instrumental analysis) to the life sciences (agrifood chemistry and cellular biochemistry). Her fields of competence are directed especially toward natural bioactive phytochemicals (carotenoids, phenolics, flavonoids), looking to advanced methods of extraction and analysis and to their in vitro actions on cellular metabolism, their effects as functional food ingredients, and their impacts on health. 

Over the years, the use of extractives from plants, animals and minerals in therapeutics has been profound and progressive. Until the advent of synthetic and semi-synthetic drugs, natural remedies had been the sole source of medications in the medieval era. In spite of the rise in the use of synthetic pharmaceutical products, the use of natural bioremedies has continued to be rife. Apart from their proven efficacy, natural bioactive... 

Natural Bioactive Principles in the Treatment of Skin Ailments... 

A new technology, natural bioactive dressing used as skin substitute has proved useful in wound management. This substitute is about one of the few that can produce fully functional skin. For boils and most skin infections, the most effective treatment appears to be direct... 

Natural bioactive principles from plant, animal and mineral origins find a wide array of applications in dmg therapy including the treatment of various skin conditions. The search for newer agents is demanding and continues to be unabated, with a promise of discovering more potent natural principles for the treatment of complex disease conditions of human skin. 

The simplest approach to isosteric replacement of one or both sulfur atoms of the cystine disulfide with a methylene or ethylene moiety is given for natural bioactive peptides when one cysteine residue is located in the N-terminal sequence position and the related amino group or peptide extension is not involved in the bioactivity. This allows for direct side chain to backbone (N-terminus) cyclization via amide bonds with suitable 5-carboxyalkyl derivatives of the second cysteine residue, or with the oo-carboxy group of aminodicarboxylic adds containing an alkyl side chain that mimics the Ca to Ca spacer in cystine. Thereby, the length and degree of branching of the sulfide or alkyl spacer can additionally be varied. 

In natural bioactive peptides the modes of cyclization described previously may be prevented either by the lack of suitable side-chain functionalities for lactamization or because these as well as the amino and carboxy termini are crucially involved in the bioactivity itself, and thus cannot be modified. In order to overcome these potential limitations, the concept of backbone cyclization has been proposed.129 According to this, the cyclization is performed by a covalent interconnection of two backbone amides by artificial spacers or of one backbone amide by a correctly functionalized spacer with side-chain functions or with the N- and C-terminus of the peptide (Scheme 21). This type of strategy significantly increases the diversity of possible ring structures (see Scheme 22) and of their related libraries (see Section 6.8.4). Its potential for enhancing the stability of the related peptide derivatives toward proteolytic digestion,[417 419 potency,141942" and selectivity,11417-419 is well-established. 

MACA is 2/-methacryloylaminoethylene)-3a, 7a, 12a -trihydroxy-5jd-cholano-amide, a cholic acid derivative of natural bioactive amphiphilic compound. The synthetic detail of MACA is not what we would like to discuss here. 

The following protocols can be used for the isolation and structural characterization of any natural bioactive peptides from the immune system of invertebrates. The different procedures that will be detailed below refer to the identification and primary structure determination of the Drosophila immune-induced peptides (19,20,23,27,30) and of bioactive peptides from the immune system of other Diptera (17,21,24,31). These approaches were also successfully used for the discovery of bioactive peptides from crustaceans, arachnids, and mollusks. These methods should be considered as a guideline and not as the exact procedure to follow (see Note 3). The suggested procedures will be reported following the normal order of execution, (1) induction of the immune response by an experimental infection, (2) collection of the immunocompetent cells (hemocytes), tissues (epithelia, trachea, salivary glands, etc.)... 

Experimental infections, tissue collection, extraction conditions, purification procedures, and strategies for determining the primary structure of the natural bioactive peptides should be adapted to the animal model (size, rarity, possibility to conduct molecular biology investigations, availability of EST, and genomic databases, etc.) considered and to the complexity of the bioactive peptide. 

Carbocyclic analogues of furanoid sugars have represented a relevant topic in the realm of carbasugars ever since the discovery of their occurrence as substructures in natural bioactive compounds, such as carbocyclic nucleosides and certain carbocyclic sugar conjugates [2], at... 

Synthesis and biological activity of heteroprostanoids 92UK456. Synthesis of natural bioactive heterocyclic compounds 92YZ516. 

How to synthesize biologically active polypeptides chemically has long been an important challenge for many fields in chemistry and biology. In the past, the development of solution-phase and solid-phase synthesis techniques has made it possible to synthesize large molecules like peptides with molecular weights up to 10,000. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of how to prepare natural bioactive peptides synthetically. Because of space limitations, this review concentrates on peptide hormones and neurotransmitters. 

PEROXIDASES AS CATALYSTS IN THE SYNTHESIS OF NATURAL BIOACTIVE ALKALOIDS... 

There are, however, a few examples in which the exclusive participation of peroxidase in the synthesis of natural bioactive alkaloids has been reported. These mainly concern the biosynthesis of some monoterpenoid indole alkaloids, especially the synthesis of a-3 ,4 -anhydrovinblastine (XLVII) [76],... 

In recent years, there has also been increased interest in functional foods — foods that provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition. Functional foods may include fortified foods where nutrients have been added, for example, calcium in orange juice, or foods where natural bioactive constituents have been enhanced through either addition or breeding strategies. Much like traditional medicines, these foods are complex mixtures of chemicals. 

Development of palladium-catalyzed cycloalkenylation and its application to the synthesis of natural bioactive O-heterocycles and terpenoids 02SL1211. 

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