Phytotoxic property of metabolites isolated from Garcinia gardneriana.

Garcinia gardneriana is a medicinal tree species used in Brazil in the treatment of hepatitis and gastritis. This use is attributed to phenolic compounds, mainly 7-epiclusianone, guttiferone-A and fukugetin, which present several proven biological activities. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study on the phytotoxic activity of G. gardneriana extracts has been conducted until now. This research proposed to isolate and quantify by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) the major compounds from G. gardneriana seed extracts in ethyl acetate and to evaluate their phytotoxic activities. The natural products 7-epiclusianone, guttiferone-A and fukugetin were quantified at concentrations varying from 0.46 to 1.13 mg mL-1 and were isolated with yields ranging from 7% to 23% (w/w). The phytotoxic assay indicated that the crude extract showed no action on the dry matter of Sorghum bicolor plants, but the isolated compounds fukugetin and 7-epiclusianone had moderate activity. On the other hand, guttiferone-A displayed a greater herbicide activity than glyphosate, a positive control, even in almost three times lower concentrations, causing severe intoxication in the plants. This work is the first report on this activity by the extract of G. gardneriana and its isolated compounds. Besides that, guttiferone-A showed up as a scaffold for the development of new agrochemicals. Complementing these findings, computational studies suggested that this benzophenone can interact effectively with transferase enzymes type, in special caffeic acid O-methyltransferase from S. bicolor (PDB code: 4PGH), indicating a possible mechanism of action in this plant.

Phonon density of states from the experimental heat capacity: an improved distribution function for solid aluminium using an inverse framework.

In this study it is reported the retrieval of the phonon density of states for solid aluminium from the temperature dependent heat capacity, the inverse heat capacity problem. The singularity in this ill posed problem was removed by the Tikhonov approach with the regularization parameter calculated as the L curve maximum curvature. A sensitivity analysis was also coupled to the numerical inversion. For temperatures ranging from 15 K to 300 K the heat capacity results, calculated from the inverted phonon density of states, yields an average error of about 0.3%, within the experimental errors that ranged from 2% to 3%. The predicted entropy, enthalpy and Gibbs free energy are also within experimental errors.

Potential energy function information from quantum phase shift using the variable phase method.

The present work discusses quantum phase shift sensitivity analysis with respect to the potential energy function. A set of differential equations for the functional derivative of the quantum phase shift with respect to the potential energy function was established and coupled with the variable phase equation. This set of differential equations provides a simple, exact and straightforward way to establish the sensitivity matrix. The present procedure is easier to use than the finite difference approach, in which several direct problems have to be addressed. Furthermore, integration of the established equations can be used to demonstrate how the sensitivity phase shift is accumulated as a function of the interatomic distance. The potential energy function was refined to produce a better quality function. The average error on the phase shift decreased from 9.8% in the original potential function to 0.13% in the recovered potential. The present procedure is an important initial step for further work towards recovering potential energy functions in upper dimensions or to recovering this function from cross sections.