Two new tropane alkaloids from the bark of Erythroxylum vacciniifolium Mart. (Erythroxylaceae)

Two new tropane alkaloid N-oxides substituted by a methylpyrrole moiety were isolated from the bark of Erythroxylum vacciniifolium Mart. (Erythroxylaceae), a Brazilian indigenous plant, locally known as catuaba and used in traditional medicine as an aphrodisiac. The alkaloid structures were determined by a combination of high resolution mass spectrometry and multi-dimensional NMR spectroscopy

Antioxidant activity of twenty five plants from Colombian biodiversity

The antioxidant activity of the crude n-hexane, dichloromethane, and methanol extracts from 25 species belonging to the Asteraceae, Euphorbiaceae, Rubiaceae, and Solanaceae families collected at natural reserves from the Eje Cafetero Ecorregión Colombia, were evaluated by using the spectrophotometric 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical-scavenging method. The strongest antioxidant activities were showed by the methanol and dichloromethane extracts from the Euphorbiaceae, Alchornea coelophylla (IC50 41.14 mg/l) and Acalypha platyphilla (IC50 111.99 mg/l), respectively. These two species had stronger DPPH radical scavenging activities than hydroquinone (IC50 151.19 mg/l), the positive control. The potential use of Colombian flora for their antioxidant activities is discussed

Operons

Operons (clusters of co-regulated genes with related functions) are common features of bacterial genomes. More recently, functional gene clustering has been reported in eukaryotes, from yeasts to filamentous fungi, plants, and animals. Gene clusters can consist of paralogous genes that have most likely arisen by gene duplication. However, there are now many examples of eukaryotic gene clusters that contain functionally related but non-homologous genes and that represent functional gene organizations with operon-like features (physical clustering and co-regulation). These include gene clusters for use of different carbon and nitrogen sources in yeasts, for production of antibiotics, toxins, and virulence determinants in filamentous fungi, for production of defense compounds in plants, and for innate and adaptive immunity in animals (the major histocompatibility locus). The aim of this article is to review features of functional gene clusters in prokaryotes and eukaryotes and the significance of clustering for effective function