Sunflower is the world fourth most important source of edible oil, after palm oil, soybean and rapeseed/canola. Sunflower acreage in Brazil has been consolidated due to the constant efforts in genetic and agronomical studies carried out by Brazilian research institutions. Although easily adapted to many Brazilian regions, genetic and agronomical improvements were needed so that economically viable crops could be harvested. Sunflower varieties with interesting oil composition as well as noteworthy protein quality were obtained. As part of these efforts, two new varieties were developed by Embrapa Soybean, Embrapa 122 V2000 and Embrapa F 2 BRS 191. This work was aimed at evaluating the chemical composition of the seeds, defatted meal and oil quality of these varieties. The oil content varied from 44 to 52% in F 2 BRS and from 36 to 47% in E 122. Linoleic (62-69%) and oleic (20-25%) were the major fatty acids in both varieties. The protein content of the defatted meal ranged from 28 to 32%. Slight differences were observed in amino acids profile, sterols and chlorogenic acid content.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive and incurable neurodegenerative disorder, with a dramatic socioeconomic impact. The progress of AD is characterized by a severe loss in memory and cognition, leading to behavioral changing, depression and death. During the last decades, only a few anticholinergic drugs were launched in the market, mainly acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs), with indications for the treatment of initial and moderate stages of AD. The search for new AChEIs, capable to overcome the limitations observed for rivastigmine and tacrine, led Sugimoto and co-workers to the discovery of donepezil. Besides its high potency, donepezil also exhibited high selectivity for AChE and a very low toxicity. In this review, we discuss the main structural and pharmacological attributes that have made donepezil the first choice medicine for AD, and a versatile structural model for the design of novel AChEIs, in spite of multipotent and multitarget-directed ligands. Many recent data from literature transdue great efforts worldwide to produce modifications in the donepezil structure that could result in new bioactive chemical entities with innovative structural pattern. Furthermore, multi-potent ligands have also been designed by molecular hybridization, affording rivastigmine-, tacrine- and huperzine-donepezil potent and selective AChEIs. In a more recent strategy, structural features of donepezil have been used as a model to design multitarget-directed ligands, aiming at the discovery of new effective drug candidates that could exhibit concomitant pharmacological activities as dual or multi- enzymatic inhibitors as genuine innovative therapeutic alternatives for the treatment of AD.

Extraction of chlorogenic acid from deffated sunflower meal RESUMO A cultura de girassol (Helianthus annuusL