Background There is increasing interest in the pharmaceutical and food industries to substitute synthetic chemicals with naturally occurring compounds possessing bioactive properties. Plants are valuable sources of bioactive compounds. The present study investigates the chemical composition and antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anticancer activities of ethanolic extracts (EEs) and essential oils (EOs) from two species in the Lamiaceae family, Ocimum basilicum L. and Thymus algeriensis Boiss. & Reut., cultivated in the Algerian Saharan Atlas. Methods The total flavonoid contents of the plants’ ethanolic extracts were determined by the aluminium chloride method, while the total phenols were determined using the Folin-Ciocalteu method. Essential oils were obtained by hydrodistillation of the aerial parts of the plants and were analysed by GC-MS. The free radical-scavenging ability and antioxidant potential of the plants’ EEs and EOs were probed using the 2, 2-diphenyl-picrylhydrazyl radical-scavenging, ABTS radical-scavenging, ferric-reducing power and phosphomolybdenum assays. The antimicrobial activities were evaluated against several pathogens characteristic of gram-negative bacteria (three species), gram-positive bacteria (three species) and fungi (two species). The microdilution method was used to estimate the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs). The oils’ anticancer potential against several cancer types was also studied using the MTT assay and reported as the toxic doses that resulted in a 50% reduction in cancer cell growth (LD 50 ). Results Phenolic compounds in the EEs from both plants were analysed by HPLC and demonstrated a rich flavonoid content. Chemical analysis of the essential oil from Ocimum basilicum revealed 26 unique compounds, with linalool (52.1%) and linalyl acetate (19.1%) as the major compounds. A total of 29 compounds were identified in the essential oil from Thymus algeriensis , with α-terpinyl acetate (47.4%), neryl acetate (9.6%), and α-pinene (6.8%) as the major compounds. The ethanolic extracts and essential oils from both plants exhibited moderate antioxidant activities and moderate to weak antimicrobial activities. Furthermore, anticancer activities against the examined human cancer cell lines were associated with only the EOs from both plants, with LD 50 values ranging between 300 and 1000 μg/mL. Conclusion The results suggest that the bioactive compounds found in the ethanolic extracts and essential oils from Ocimum basilicum and Thymus algeriensis , with diverse antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer activities, may have beneficial applications in nutraceutical and pharmaceutical technologies.

In this review, some studies on Lilium genus that have about 100 species and belong to Liliaceae were investigated and compiled. Lilium is used in different fields as medicine, food, landscape and perfumery industry. There are a lot of molecular and genetic studies on Lilium species because of its large chromosomes. The antioxidant, cytotoxic, genotoxic activities of some species were determined and some phyochemical compounds were isolated from Lilium species. According to researches, Lilium species are potential antioxidant sources and include some compounds as steroidal saponins, glycoalkaloid and phenolic glyceride was found. Consequently, this review strongly suggest that this genus may serve for pharmaceutical applications and can continue to be used as an ornamental plant.

The thermodynamics of complex formation of polyamideamine dendrimers: cationic PAMAM G4-NH 2 , neutral PAMAM G4-OH and anionic PAMAM G3.5-COONa with gemcitabine hydrochloride, an antitumor drug, in water at a temperature of 25 0 C was studied. The investigations were carried out with the use of ITC measurements allowing one to determine the number of the drug molecules bonded by the dendrimer macromolecule, the equilibrium constants of the complex formed and the values of enthalpy and entropy of their formation. The measurement results obtained show different numbers of the drug molecules bonded by dendrimer macromolecules depending on the properties of their terminal groups.

Verbascum L. species have been used since ancient times in traditional medicine thanks to their bioactive compounds. In this study, we evaluated the antioxidant activity and phenolic contents of ethanolic and acetonic extract of Verbascum glomeratum that collected from Denizli, Turkey. The antioxidant activity were evaluated by using various methods (β-carotene/linoleic acid, ferric reducing power assays (FRAP), radical scavenging assays of 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2and#39;-azino-bis-3-ethyl benzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS), phoshomolibdenum methods) and total phenolic, flavonoid and tannin contents in the extracts were determined. Antioxidant activity was determined as β-carotene/linoleic acid (%58.5and#177;0.021), DPPH (IC50: 1.220and#177;0.025) and ABTS (IC50:1.552and#177;0.021), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) (4.151and#177;0.056 mgTE/g), phoshomolibdenum assay (8.218and#177;0.015 mgAE/g) total phenolic, total flavonoid and tannin contents was found as (4.41and#177;0.007 mgGAE/mL), (87.142and#177;0.009 and#181;QE/g), and (30.178and#177;0.008 mgCEs/g) respectively, and then 14 different phenolic compounds in ethanol extracts was carried out by HPLC. Epicatechin (2742.09 and#181;g/g) and 2,5dihidroksi (2544.96 and#181;g/g) were the most abundant phenolic constituents in the extracts. According the results, the extract of V. glomeratum may be considered as a potential source of biological agents.