植物内生放线菌研究*

近年来从植物组织中发现一些新的放线菌菌种 ,有些内生放线菌产生新的生物活性代谢物 ,或产生具有新特性的酶 ;对植物内生放线菌与植物宿主及其他微生物之间的关系研究有新的发现 ,植物内生放线菌在植物病害防治中的作用已引起重视。本文将简单介绍近年来这方面的研究进展。     

植物内生放线菌研究

近年来从植物组织中发现一些新的放线菌菌种,有些内生放线菌产生新的生物活性代谢物,或产生具有新特性的酶;对植物内生放线菌与植物宿主及其他微生物之间的关系研究有新的发现,植物内生放线菌在植物病害防治中的作用已引起重视。本将简单介绍近年来这方面的研究进展。     

植物内生真菌抗肿瘤活性代谢产物研究进展

癌症已成为全球头号杀手,迫切需要从自然界寻找更新、更有效的抗肿瘤药物。植物内生真菌是指生活在宿主植物体内,不会对宿主植物组织引起明显病害症状的一类真菌。众多研究表明,植物内生真菌在寻找抗肿瘤药物中起着至关重要的作用。随着植物内生真菌研究的深入,从植物内生真菌中寻找新的抗肿瘤活性成分已成为研究的热点。大量的抗肿瘤活性成分从植物内生真菌中分离出来,并表现出良好的抗肿瘤活性。目前,植物内生真菌抗肿瘤活性代谢产物主要有紫杉醇、喜树碱、长春新碱,鬼臼毒素等等,本文主要对近年来植物内生真菌抗肿瘤活性成分的研究进展进行了综述。     

植物内生固氮菌及其固氮机理研究进展

氮素是植物生长必不可少的元素,植物内生固氮菌不仅能够在植物体内产生氮素以供植物利用,而且在自然界氮素循环过程中发挥积极作用,对农业可持续发展具有重要意义。近年来,植物内生固氮菌逐渐成为研究热点。由植物内生固氮菌的发现、作物共生、侵入途径、固氮机理、促生作用机制等方面系统地综述了植物内生固氮菌的研究进展,探讨了植物内生固氮菌新的研究思路以及一些尚未解决的问题,以期为植物内生固氮菌及生物固氮研究提供参考。     

植物内生菌活性代谢产物最新研究进展

内生菌广泛存在于植物组织中,作为一种新型的微生物资源,具有丰富的物种多样性,也是发掘新型天然活性物质的重要途径之一,有些内生菌还能产生与宿主植物相同或相似的活性成分。因此从植物内生菌中挖掘抗菌尤其抗临床耐药菌、抗肿瘤等天然活性产物不仅为新药的研发提供了新的方向,还能在一定程度上解决传统的天然产物药源——药用植物生长缓慢、资源紧缺等问题。从多个角度概述了近年来国内外报道的植物内生菌次生代谢产物及其来源、生物活性等方面的主要成果和最新进展,以期为植物内生菌活性代谢产物的研究提供参考。     

植物内生菌生物抗菌活性物质研究进展

植物内生菌作为一种新型的微生物资源,分离和确定其代谢产物是一条寻找新型天然活性物质的重要途径。目前为止,许多研究者从不同的植物内生菌中分离到大量具有抗菌活性的新化合物,这些新的化合物被认为是解决日益严重的微生物多重耐药性的希望之一。本文从植物内生菌的多样性、抗菌活性物质多样性及国内内生菌研究进展等多个角度概述了当前有关植物内生菌研究的主要成果和最新进展,以期为植物内生菌相关研究提供借鉴。     

植物内生真菌——一类应用前景广阔的资源微生物*

从内生真菌的基本生物学特征出发 ,着重对近年来关于植物内生真菌的生物学作用方面的研究情况进行了综述 ,主要包括内生真菌对植物生长发育及其抗逆性的促进作用、内生真菌与生物防治、内生真菌与抗癌药物的开发等。最后还对内生真菌在实际应用中存在的问题和可能采取的措施进行了总结。     

植物内生真菌——一类应用前景广阔的资源微生物

从内生真菌的基本生物学特征出发,着重对近年来关于植物内生真菌的生物学作用方面的研究情况进行了综述,主要包括内生真菌对植物生长发育及其抗逆性的促进作用、内生真菌与生物防治、内生真菌与抗癌药物的开发等。最后还对内生真菌的实际应用中存在的问题和可能采取的提供进行了总结。     

植物内生放线菌多样性研究进展

植物内生放线菌作为植物内生菌资源的一大类,具有丰富的多样性,其次级代谢产物也十分丰富,而且还具有各种生物学活性。通过了解植物内生放线菌资源的多样性,可以对其产生的生物活性物质进行筛选和分析,从而筛选出具有良好药理活性的物质应用于临床。从植物内生放线菌宿主植物、组织分布、种类和数量以及活性基因4个方面综述了植物内生放线菌的多样性资源,介绍植物内生放线菌新的微生物物种,总结了植物内生放线菌目前研究中存在的问题及展望。     

植物内生真菌---类应用前景广阔的资源微生物

从内生真菌的基本生物学特征出发,着重对近年来关于植物内生真菌的生物学作用方面的研究情况进行了综述,主要包括内生真菌对植物生长发育及其抗逆性的促进作用、内生真菌与生物防治、内生真菌与抗癌药物的开发等.最后还对内生真菌在实际应用中存在的问题和可能采取的措施进行了总结.     

Rainforest endophytes and bioactive products

An increase in the number of people in the world having health problems caused by certain cancers, drug-resistant bacteria, parasitic protozoans, and fungi has caused alarm. An intensive search for newer and more effective agents to deal with these problems is now underway. Endophytes are a potential source of novel chemistry and biology to assist in helping solve not only human health, but plant and animal health problems also. Endophytes reside in the tissues between living plant cells. The relationship that they establish with the plant varies from symbiotic to bordering on pathogenic. Of all of the world's plants, it seems that only a few grass species have had their complete complement of endophytes studied. As a result, the opportunity to find new and interesting endophytes among the myriad of plants is great. Sometimes extremely unusual and valuable organic substances are produced by these endophytes. These compounds may contribute to the host-microbe relationship. The initial step in dealing with endophytic microorganisms is their successful isolation from plant materials. Then, the isolation and characterization of bioactive substances from culture filtrates is done using bioassay guided fractionation and spectroscopic methods. Some of the more interesting compounds produced by endophytic microbes with which we have dealt are taxol, cryptocin, cryptocandin, jesterone, oocydin, isopestacin, the pseudomycins and ambuic acid. This review discusses an approach for bio-prospecting the rainforests, not only to harvest their endophytic microorganisms, but to eventually build a better understanding of the importance and value they have to humankind.     

Rainforest Endophytes and Bioactive Products

ABSTRACT:?

An increase in the number of people in the world having health problems caused by certain cancers, drug-resistant bacteria, parasitic protozoans, and fungi has caused alarm. An intensive search for newer and more effective agents to deal with these problems is now underway. Endophytes are a potential source of novel chemistry and biology to assist in helping solve not only human health, but plant and animal health problems also. Endophytes reside in the tissues between living plant cells. The relationship that they establish with the plant varies from symbiotic to bordering on pathogenic. Of all of the world's plants, it seems that only a few grass species have had their complete complement of endophytes studied. As a result, the opportunity to find new and interesting endophytes among the myriad of plants is great. Sometimes extremely unusual and valuable organic substances are produced by these endophytes. These compounds may contribute to the host-microbe relationship. The initial step in dealing with endophytic microorganisms is their successful isolation from plant materials. Then, the isolation and characterization of bioactive substances from culture filtrates is done using bioassay guided fractionation and spectroscopic methods. Some of the more interesting compounds produced by endophytic microbes with which we have dealt are taxol, cryptocin, cryptocandin, jesterone, oocydin, isopestacin, the pseudomycins and ambuic acid. This review discusses an approach for bio-prospecting the rainforests, not only to harvest their endophytic microorganisms, but to eventually build a better understanding of the importance and value they have to humankind.     

Endophytes as sources of bioactive products

An increase in the number of people in the world having health problems caused by various cancers, drug-resistant bacteria, parasitic protozoans, and fungi is a cause for alarm. An intensive search for newer and more effective agents to deal with these disease problems is now under way and endophytes are a novel source of potentially useful medicinal compounds.     

Flavonoid compounds in maintenance of prostate health and prevention and treatment of cancer

Compounds based on a flavonoid (di-phenolic) ring structure are emerging as a potentially important new class of pharmaceutical compounds with a broad range of biological activities, most prominent of which are their potential role as anticancer agents. These compounds exert a wide range of upregulating and downregulating effects on signal transduction processes within cells in both plants and animals. The observation that human communities, which consume large quantities of these compounds (legume-based vegetarian diets), have a lower incidence of many degenerative diseases and some cancers has led to the speculation that these compounds, or synthetic analogs, may be of therapeutic value. This article reviews the evidence supporting this hypothesis and provides some examples of attempts to develop new therapeutics based on dietary isoflavones or novel isoflavonoid structures in maintaining prostate health and in cancer treatment and management. One of these compounds, phenoxodiol, is now in human clinical trials and has shown promise in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer where the cancer is refractory or resistant to standard chemotherapy, and in patients with hormone-refractory prostate cancer.     

Identification and design of novel small molecule inhibitors against MERS-CoV papain-like protease via high-throughput screening and molecular modeling

The development of new therapeutic agents against the coronavirus causing Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a continuing imperative. The initial MERS-CoV epidemic was contained entirely through public health measures, but episodic cases continue, as there are currently no therapeutic agents effective in the treatment of MERS-CoV, although multiple strategies have been proposed. In this study, we screened 30,000 compounds from three different compound libraries against one of the essential proteases, the papain-like protease (PL^pro), using a fluorescence-based enzymatic assay followed by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) direct binding analysis for hit confirmation. Mode of inhibition assays and competition SPR studies revealed two compounds to be competitive inhibitors. To improve upon the inhibitory activity of the best hit compounds, a small fragment library consisting of 352 fragments was screened in the presence of each hit compound, resulting in one fragment that enhanced the IC₅₀ value of the best hit compound by 3-fold. Molecular docking and MM/PBSA binding energy calculations were used to predict potential binding sites, providing insight for design and synthesis of next-generation compounds.     

Antimicrobial Agents with Improved Clinical Efficacy versus Their Persistence in the Environment: Synthetic 4-Quinolone As an Example

There is increasing concern about the effects of pharmaceutical agents in the environment. The use of synthetic 4-quinolone compounds is rapidly increasing: newer and more complex analogues are being developed by the pharmaceutical industry to meet clinical and veterinary needs. This review aims at stimulating the need to consider the fate of pharmaceuticals in the environment as part of overall drug design and development. Currently, regulatory action is triggered if the predicted environmental concentration exceeds an arbitrarily set value, whereas in some countries, there are no regulations at all. By extension, from a clinical perspective, enviropharmacokinetics and enviropharmacodynamics are proposed to quantify the risk to organisms in the environment in a more realistic fashion that is reflective of concentrations at which hazardous effects are observable on such organisms. Such a new approach integrates our knowledge to address ecosystems and related health problems in a more holistic fashion, thus linking public health, environmental degradation, and ecology. Its success requires more collaboration in research and development of newer antibiotics, with their ultimate fate in the environment being central, to bolster the already existing aspirations of controlling the rapid emergence of resistance.     

Benzotriazoles and indazoles are scaffolds with biological activity against Entamoeba histolytica

Parasitic infections caused by Entamoeba histolytica are still major threats against public health, especially in developing countries. Although current therapies exist, the problems associated with parasite resistance and negative side effects make it imperative to search for new therapeutic agents. A systematic scaffold analysis reported herein of a public database containing 474 antiamoebic compounds reveals that benzimidazole is the most active scaffold reported thus far. To gain insights into the antiamoebic activity of novel compounds, the authors report herein the biological activity of 12 compounds, including benzotriazole and indazole derivatives, scaffolds not previously tested against E. histolytica. Compounds with the benzotriazole and indazole scaffolds showed low micromolar activity (IC(50) = 0.304 and 0.339 μM) and are more active than metronidazole, which is the drug of choice used for the treatment of amebiosis. The novel compounds have similar properties to approved drugs. Compounds with novel scaffolds represent promising starting points of an optimization program against E. histolytica.     

Enzymatic assays and molecular modeling studies of Schisandra chinensis lignans and phenolics from fruit and leaf extracts

Abstract

Considerable interest has been shown in natural sources and their compounds in developing new therapeutically agents for different diseases. In this framework, investigations performed on this topic play a central role for human health and drug development process. Schisandra chinensis (Turcz.) Baill is a medicinal and edible plant showing highly advantageous bioactivity and nutritional value. The main bioactive compounds from its fruits are lignans, derivatives of dibenzocyclooctadiene whereas concerning its leaves, phenolic acids, and flavonoids are dominant. The purpose of this study was to investigate the enzyme inhibitory potential on selected carbohydrate hydrolases, cholinesterases, and tyrosinase of extracts from fruits and leaves of Schisandra in relation with their main bioactive compounds. Furthermore, the interactions between dominant compounds (schisandrol A, schisandrol B, schisandrin B, and cinnamic acid) from extracts and selected enzymes were investigated by molecular modeling and molecular dynamic studies in order to explain at a molecular level our findings.     

Imidazo[4,5-<Emphasis Type="Italic">a</Emphasis>]quinindolines as highly effective antibacterial agents

Resistance to antimicrobial agents is a concern that exists globally and has a considerable impact on human and animal health, so that the discovery of new antibacterial compounds has become increasingly more important in combating infectious disease. In this paper, imidazo[4,5-a]quinindolines are introduced as new antibacterial agents against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. These pentacyclic compounds are synthesized by the reaction of N-alkyl-5-nitrobenzimidazoles with 2-(1-alkyl-1H-3-indolyl)acetonitrile under basic conditions in excellent yields. The structures of newly synthesized compounds were characterized by IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, and mass spectral data. The antibacterial activities of the synthesized compounds were screened against standard strains of two Gram-positive and two Gram-negative bacteria using the broth microdilution method. Most of the compounds studied showed promising activities against both types of bacteria.     

Inhibition of serine proteases by a new class of cyclosulfamide-based carbamylating agents

A new class of carbamylating agents based on the cyclosulfamide scaffold is reported. These compounds were found to be efficient time-dependent inhibitors of human neutrophil elastase (HNE). Exploitation of the three sites of diversity present in the cyclosulfamide scaffold yielded compounds which inhibited HNE but not proteinase 3 (PR 3) or bovine trypsin. The findings reported herein suggest that the introduction of appropriate recognition elements into the cyclosulfamide scaffold may lead to highly selective agents of potential value in the design of activity-based probes suitable for investigating proteases associated with the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.