Phytotoxicity of plant extracts of Vismia japurensis cultivated in vivo and in vitro

Plants that produce secondary metabolites with allelopathic activity or phytotoxicity can be biotechnologically important, serving as sources of allelochemicals, and thus contributing to the agroindustrial sector. Vismia japurensis (Hypericaceae) is an Amazonian species that grows in clumps called vismiais, from which most other plants are absent. Accordingly, the objective of this study was to identify possible phytotoxicity effects of hexane and methanol extracts of Vismia japurensis leaves and branches in vivo and from seedlings grown in vitro on Lactuca sativa. In addition, fresh and dry leaves were assayed by the sandwich method in order to determine their ability to release allelochemicals. The hexanic extract from in vitro seedlings reduced germination by 10%, while the methanol extract produced a 16% reduction in germination speed. Root growth of Lactuca sativa was inhibited by 64.7% when subjected to hexane leaf extract, by 39.3% under the influence of hexane branch extract, and by 96.09% for in vitro seedling hexanic extract. When analysed by thin layer chromatography and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance, extracts showed evidence of terpenes, anthraquinones and flavonoids, with greater intensity of signals in the aromatic region of in vitro seedling hexanic extract. Clearly, Vismia japurensis has a high biotechnological potential in terms of the production of substances of low polarity with capacity to interfere in plant development.

Unraveling the Stability of Cyclobutadiene Complexes using Aromaticity Markers

Cyclobutadiene (CBD) is the paradigmatic antiaromatic molecule but is known to form highly stable aromatic complexes, e.g. CBD-Fe(CO)3. This intriguing reversal of aromaticity from antiaromatic to aromatic region during complexation...

A new polymorph of physcion

The structure of the title compound, 7-methoxy-2-methyl-4,5-dihydroxyanthracene-9,10-dione, C16H12O5, was originally reported by Ulickýet al.[Acta Cryst.(1991). C47, 1879–1881] in the space groupP212121[polymorph (Io)]. The new polymorph, (Im), crystallizes in the space groupP21/c. The molecular structures are closely similar, with both –OH groups forming intramolecular hydrogen bonds to one of the neighbouring quinone O atoms, thus slightly lengthening this C=O bond; the pattern of C—C bond lengths in the ring system is consistent with some contribution from a resonance form with a negative charge at the hydrogen-bonded quinone O atom and an aromatic region around its neighbouring C atoms. The packing of (Im) is simpler than the extensively crosslinked pattern of (Io), with molecular tapes connected by classical (but three-centre) and `weak' hydrogen bonds, parallel to [20\overline{1}].

High rate composting of herbal pharmaceutical industry solid waste

High rate composting studies of hard to degrade herbal wastes were conducted in a 3.5 m3 capacity rotary drum composter. Studies were spread out in four trials: In trial 1 and 2, one and two turns per day rotation was observed, respectively, by mixing of herbal industry waste with cattle (buffalo) manure at a ratio of 3:1 on wet weight basis. In trial 3 inocula was added in raw waste to enhance the degradation and in trial 4 composting of a mixture of vegetable market waste and herbal waste was conducted at one turn per day. Results demonstrated that the operation of the rotary drum at one turn a day (trial 1) could provide the most conducive composting conditions and co-composting (trial 4) gave better quality compost in terms of temperature, moisture, nitrogen, and Solvita maturity index. In addition a FT-IR study also revealed that trial 1 and trial 4 gave quality compost in terms of stability and maturity due to the presence of more intense peaks in the aromatic region and less intense peaks were found in the aliphatic region compared with trial 2 and trial 3.

Application of artificial intelligence in organic chemistry. Part XIX*. Pattern recognition and structural determination of flavonoids using13C‒NMR spectra

This essay describes another improvement to the expert system named SISTEMAT. The purpose of such improvement is to help chemists who work with natural products to figure out chemical structures. SISTEMAT uses Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)13C data to ensemble compatible substructures according to related spectra. The system also is able to suggest a list of probable carbon skeletons. Those will work as models to structure generating programs, reducing the combinatorial explosion problem. This is the first essay from our research group which shows our system applications to aromatic compounds. A database with 700 NMR13C spectra of flavonoids obtained from the literature was used. We applied heuristic SISTEMAT in order to discover ranges of chemical shifts that characterise several skeleton types. The diversity of flavonoid structures is due to several oxidation patterns at rings A and B. This phenomenon causes a great complexity in the absorptions at the aromatic region. Heuristic SISTEMAT was able to discover more accurate rules that differentiate specific patterns of oxidation for some skeleton types. The performance of the software was checked against a higher complex structure of a dimeric flavonoid recently isolated. The system gives only two possibilities of skeleton types (among 70 others). Both substructures found by the program showed correct linkages between carbons 2 and 7″and 4 and 8″of the monomers.

A New Example of Edge-to-Face Interaction of Aromatic Rings in Oligopeptides: Cyclolinopeptide A

The analysis of the aromatic region of 1H and 13C NMR spectra of cyclolinopeptide A (cyclic nonapeptide with the sequence c—(Pro— Pro— Phe—Phe—Leu— Ile— Ile— Leu— Val— ), (CLA)) shows that Phe-3 and Phe-4 aromatic rings are oriented nearly perpendicularly to each other, forming edge-to-face pair. It signifies the strong limitation of the free rotation of aromatic residues, probably because of the steric hindrance exerted by proximal aliphatic side chains of CLA.