Malaria is a human infectious disease that is caused by four species of Plasmodium. It is responsible for more than 1 million deaths per year. Natural products contain a great variety of chemical structures and have been screened for antiplasmodial activity as potential sources of new antimalarial drugs. This review highlights studies on natural products with antimalarial and antiplasmodial activity reported in the literature from January 2009 to November 2010. A total of 360 antiplasmodial natural products comprised of terpenes, including iridoids, sesquiterpenes, diterpenes, terpenoid benzoquinones, steroids, quassinoids, limonoids, curcubitacins, and lanostanes; flavonoids; alkaloids; peptides; phenylalkanoids; xanthones; naphthopyrones; polyketides, including halenaquinones, peroxides, polyacetylenes, and resorcylic acids; depsidones; benzophenones; macrolides; and miscellaneous compounds, including halogenated compounds and chromenes are listed in this review.

Bacterial cellulose (BC) has been extensively exploited for applications in materials science, biomedical and technological fields. The BC production demands culture media rich in carbon sources. Agro-forestry residues constitute an interesting source of nutrients for microorganism, but they are frequently wasted. For cashew crop, exudate is periodically extracted from the tree trunks to increase the production of cashew nut, the most valuable product from cashew trees that produces about 700 g of exudate/year, which remains wasted. Here, we associated the nutritional properties of residues from cashew tree with the need of carbon sources for BC, in attempt to valorize the residue and to decrease the costs of BC production. The carbon source from Hestrin Schramm culture medium was totally or partially replaced by cashew tree residues and the BC production was evaluated. The produced BC membrane in static medium was characterized by FTIR, SEM and TGA and the kinetics of production was determined, suggesting the cashew tree residues as a potential carbon source for BC production.

As part of a bioprospecting program aimed at the discovery of antiprotozoal agents from the Brazilian flora, two new sesquiterpene pyridine alkaloids, ilicifoliunines A (1) and B (2), along with the known alkaloids aquifoliunine E-I (3) and mayteine (4), were isolated from the root bark of Maytenus ilicifolia. The structures of 1 and 2 were established on the basis of spectroscopic data interpretation. Alkaloid 3 displayed potent in vitro antiprotozoal activity against Leishmania chagasi and Trypanosoma cruzi, with IC(50) values of 1.4 and 41.9 μM, respectively, as well as low cytotoxicity against murine peritoneal macrophages (IC(50) of 1.8 mM).