sp. soft corals are rich in cembranoid diterpenes, which represent the main chemical defense of corals against their natural predators in addition to their myriad biological effects in humans. Quantitative NMR (qNMR) was applied for assessing the diterpene variation in 16 soft coral specimens in the context of their genotype, origin, and growing habitat. qNMR revealed high diterpene levels insp. compared toand, with (ent)sarcophines as major components (17-100 µg/mg) of the coral tissues. Multivariate data analysis was employed to classify samples based on the quantified level of diterpenes, and compared to the untargeted NMR approach. Results revealed that qNMR provided a stronger classification model ofsp. than untargeted NMR fingerprinting. Additionally, cytotoxicity of soft coral crude extracts was assessed against androgen-dependent prostate cancer cell lines (PC3) and androgen-independent colon cancer cell lines (HT-29), with ICvalues ranging from 10-60 µg/mL. No obvious correlation between the extracts' ICvalues and their diterpene levels was found using either Spearman or Pearson correlations. This suggests that this type of bioactivity may not be easily predicted by NMR metabolomics in soft corals, or is not strongly correlated to measured diterpene levels.

The phytochemical profiles of leaves and pollen grains' extracts of , and were investigated and characterised by LC-HR-MS-based metabolomic analysis. Further, biomarker metabolites were determined using multivariate and clustering analysis. leaves extract along with both and pollen grains extracts showed interesting cytotoxic activity using MTT assay against PC-3 cell lines. While, both leaves and pollen grains-derived extracts and pollen grains-derived extracts were active against A-172 cell line. OPLS-DA models was generated, to putatively determine the most active cytotoxic metabolites, these models suggested that alkaloids, flavonoids and phenolic acids are the most important metabolites in the active extracts. analysis (neural-networking-based activity prediction and docking studies) of these top-scoring metabolites further supported OPLS-DA models predictability. This study could be considered as primary step in the in-depth exploration of bioactive natural products from .

ABSTRACTThis study aims to highlight the antioxidant and cytotoxic effects of Cichorium intybus L.. The cytotoxic activity for cancer cell lines was evaluated by MTT assay. Total phenol and flavonoid content were examined using chemical analysis methodology. The highest content of phenols and flavonoids have occurred in the methanolic extract (1162.29 ± 103.4 µg.g?1 GAE D.W, 167.47 ± 5.83 µg QE.g?1 D.W), respectively, followed by ethanolic extract (153.83 ± 10.25 µg GAE.g`1 D.W, 36.56 ± 5.95 µgQE.g?1 D.W), respectively. The cytotoxic effect of methanolic extract on MCF-7 cell line was achieved at 500 µg.mL?1. The results showed that methanolic extract possessed potent cytotoxic activity while ethanol extract possessed antioxidant activity. In conclusion, natural plant extract might be prevent and working as a defense by enhancing the immune system against cancer.

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The human cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) gene has been confirmed to be associated with several autoimmune diseases. In this study, we investigated the CTLA-4 gene polymorphism in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) Egyptian patients. A polymerase chain reaction was conducted to amplify CTLA-4 gene, followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) assay to detect candidate genetic polymorphism at positions -1722 T/C and -1661 A/G. Sixty SLE patients (55 females and 5 males) with mean age 28.5 ± 7 years and 40 healthy controls (31 females and 9 males) with mean age 27.8 ± 6.2 years were included in this study. The genotypic distribution at position -1661 of CTLA-4 gene was GG (11.7 %), AA (70 %), and AG (18.3 %) in SLE patients versus GG (20 %), AA (65 %), and AG (15 %) in the control (P value 0.508); regarding the position -1772 of CTLA-4 gene, the distribution was TT (83.3 %) and TC (16.7 %) in SLE patients versus TT (77.5 %) and TC (22.5 %) in the controls (P value 0.466). On studying the clinicopathological impact of the studied single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) with the disease severity, there is a statistical significance (P = 0.011) for the presence of AA genotype and severity of disease at -1661 genotype. AA genotype at -1661 was protective against discoid rash (P = 0.005), TC genotype at -1772 site is protective against serositis (P = 0.05), and serositis occurs more commonly with the AG genotype at -1661 site (P = 0.038). In our study, we concluded that the studied SNPs at positions -1772 and -1661 of CTLA-4 gene were not associated with SLE risk in Egyptian population.