BACKGROUND: Peptones are one of the most expensive components of microbial culture media. The present study was performed to produce microbial peptone from sheep wool using a new chemical process. RESULTS: Wool peptone (WP) was found to have high protein (67.8 g per 100 g) and ash (29.2 g per 100 g) contents. Glutamic acid was the most abundant amino acid in WP with a content of 8175 mg per 100 g). Wool peptone (WP) also had a high content (5042 mg per 100 g) of cystine, a sulphur-containing amino acid. Optimal concentration of WP was determined as 5 g L −1 for the fungi and 6 g L −1 for the bacteria. Staphylococcus aureus showed very poor growth performance in WP medium. Growth performances of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Bacillus subtilis and Penicillium chrysogenum were at moderate levels in WP medium. The best growth performance for Aspergillus niger was observed in WP medium with a biomass production of 8.17 g L −1 . Second best growth performance for Escherichia coli was achieved with WP among the tested peptones. a good growth substrate, especially for A. niger and E. coli. This is the first investigation on use of wool as peptone source or substrate for microorganisms. CONCLUSION: Wool peptone (WP) was shown to be REFERENCES1 AL-Bahri MBAG, AL-Naimi SA and Ahammed SH, The optimum conditions for production of soya peptone by acidic hydrolysis of soya proteins.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) including free radicals such as hydroxyl radicals (OH • ), singlet oxygen ( 1 O 2 ), superoxide anion radicals (O 2•-), and non-free radical species such as hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) are diverse kinds of activated oxygen and mostly produced by exogenous factors or oxidation product of biological reactions [1][2][3] . ROS have created considerable interest among scientists in the recent years [4][5][6] . Their wide range of effects that are of medicinal and biological interest have led to several experimental studies [7][8][9] . Additionally, it is well-known that ROS induce oxidative damage to biomolecules such as lipids, proteins, carbohydrates and deoxyribonucleic acids [10][11][12] , which might induce cancer, ageing, and other multitude of diseases [13][14][15][16] . In addition, ROS has also been implicated in more than 100 diseases such as heart disease, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, malaria, stroke, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, and cancer [17][18][19][20] .The plant kingdom, including medicinal and dietary plants, offers many natural phytochemicals that include phenolic diterpenes, triterpenes, flavonoids, phenolic acids and sterols [21][22][23] . Antiinflammatory, antioxidant and anticancer activities reported to be possessed by these compounds might have resulted from prevention of oxidative damage [24,25] . There is rising interest in endemic species because these can be used for preparing phytopharmaceuticals with considerable antioxidant potential or for the production of raw materials and health confidants [26][27][28] . Antioxidant compounds are molecules that can inhibit or delay the oxidation of lipids or other biomolecules by inhibiting the initiation and propagation of oxidative chain reactions [29] . Some plants synthesize large amounts of vitamin C, vitamin E, and carotenoids, which are well-known antioxidants [30][31][32][33] . Phenolic compounds are also widely distributed in plants and have been found to possess antioxidative potential as well [34] . Natural

In this study, inhibitor effects of thymol and carvacrol were investigated in vivo and in vitro on acetylcholinesterase enzyme of Drosophila melanogaster. IC50 values, Ki constants and inhibition types were determined for the substances displaying inhibitory effect. In vivo studies, were performed on larvaes by considering IC50 values. The surviving and mortality rates were determined for the solution applied to larvaes. IC50 values of thymol and carvacrol were found to be 25 mM and 0.175 mM, respectively. By using Lineweaver-Burk graphs, it was found that both compounds show non-competitive type of inhibition. According to results, it was concluded that carvacrol is a more effective inhibitor than thymol. We believe that these findings will contribute to the development of more potent, specific and effective inhibitors against AChE enzyme, design of new drugs for treating Alzheimer's disease and studies in pharmacological applications.

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