Effects of Baru Almond Oil (Dipteryx alata Vog.) Treatment on Thrombotic Processes, Platelet Aggregation, and Vascular Function in Aorta Arteries.

Background: This study assessed the effects of Baru (Dipteryx alata Vog.) almond oil supplementation on vascular function, platelet aggregation, and thrombus formation in aorta arteries of Wistar rats. Methods: Male Wistar rats were allocated into three groups. The control group (n = 6), a Baru group receiving Baru almond oil at 7.2 mL/kg/day (BG 7.2 mL/kg, n = 6), and (iii) a Baru group receiving Baru almond oil at 14.4 mL/kg/day (BG 14.4 mL/kg, n = 6). Baru oil was administered for ten days. Platelet aggregation, thrombus formation, vascular function, and reactive oxygen species production were evaluated at the end of treatment. Results: Baru oil supplementation reduced platelet aggregation (p < 0.05) and the production of the superoxide anion radical in platelets (p < 0.05). Additionally, Baru oil supplementation exerted an antithrombotic effect (p < 0.05) and improved the vascular function of aorta arteries (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The findings showed that Baru oil reduced platelet aggregation, reactive oxygen species production, and improved vascular function, suggesting it to be a functional oil with great potential to act as a novel product for preventing and treating cardiovascular disease.

Virtual Screening of Natural Products Database.

Constant research on natural products has generated, over time, a large number of compounds with the potential to be evaluated in several biological tests and subsequently have been cataloged in databases that allow other researchers to perform virtual screenings of activity in various biological systems. This considerably reduces the time for the development of new drugs. This review describes the main databases of natural products available for searching bioactive compounds. It also describes the main features of virtual screening strategies for the identification of molecules with the potential to be used as new drugs. In addition, a search was made in the Web of Science database, using the search term "Virtual screening of natural products databases" from 2003 to 2018. The search criterion resulted in 230 articles, which had their abstracts evaluated with pertinence to the criteria required for this work, which are: a) be a research article; b) performing a virtual screening on databases of natural products or containing natural products; and c) works that identified drug candidate molecules. Based on these criteria, the bibliographic review on the topic was excluded. After this analysis, 104 works were selected for this review. We selected relevant papers describing the potential drug candidates that were distributed in 15 classes, of which the anticancer, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory hits were the most abundant. The works showing efforts to search for new molecules against various other diseases in distinct biological systems were also described. In this way, this work shows an overview of several methodologies and we hope they can help and inspire the development of new research to improve people's quality of life.

Virtual screening and assessment of anticancer potential of selenium-based compounds against HL-60 and MCF7 cells.

Aim: Selenium-based compounds have antitumor potential. We used a ligand-based virtual screening analysis to identify selenoglycolicamides with potential antitumor activity. Results & Conclusion: Compounds 3, 6, 7 and 8 were selected for in vitro cytotoxicity tests against various cell lines, according to spectrophotometry results. Compound 3 presented the best cytotoxicity results against a promyelocytic leukemia line (HL-60) and was able to induce cell death at a frequency similar to that observed for doxorubicin. The docking study showed that compound 3 has good interaction energies with the targets caspase-3, 7 and 8, which are components of the apoptotic pathway. These results suggested that selenium has significant pharmacological potential for the selective targeting of tumor cells, inducing molecular and cellular events that culminate in tumor cell death.

Synthesis of new imidazolidin-2,4-dione and 2-thioxoimidazolidin-4-ones via C-phenylglycine derivatives.

Hydantoins and their derivatives constitute a group of pharmaceutical compounds with anticonvulsant and antiarrhythmic properties, and are also used against diabetes. N-3 and C-5 substituted imidazolidines are examples of such products. As such, we have developed a synthesis of 2,4-dione and 2-thioxo-4-one imidazolidinic derivatives by reaction of amino acids with C-phenylglycine, phenyl isocyanate and phenyl isothiocyanate. Four amino-derivatives IG(1-4) and eight imidazolidinic derivatives, IM(1-8), were obtained in yields of 70-74%. The mass, infrared, (1)H and (13)C-NMR spectra of representative products are discussed.