El uso indiscriminado de antimicrobianos (antibióticos, antifúngicos o antivíricos), utilizados de manera profiláctica en el pienso o de forma terapéutica en la industria avícola, ha generado la creciente preocupación por la resistencia antimicrobiana de muchos microorganismos poniendo en peligro la eficacia en la prevención y el tratamiento de ciertas infecciones. Por ello, varias industrias de producción, incluyendo la industria avícola, están optando por sustituir estos antimicrobianos comerciales por agentes antimicrobianos naturales que provienen de plantas medicinales, evaluando los efectos de sus extractos o metabolitos secundarios. Por ello el estudio tuvo como objetivo evaluar la actividad antimicrobiana (bactericida y antimicótica) de una formulación natural de anillo cimenol-ácido cítrico (ACAC) frente a maíz amarillo duro experimentalmente contaminado con Pseudomona sp, Clostridium sp, Escherichia coli, Salmonella sp, Fusarium sp, Rhizopus sp y Aspergillus sp en concentraciones de 103 y 106 UFC/g. El ACAC fue comparado frente a dos formulaciones comerciales de ácidos orgánicos (A: ácido fórmico/ácido propiónico, y B: ácido propiónico al 90%), utilizando dos tiempos de tratamiento por 24 horas y 7 días. Los resultados muestran que ACAC tuvo un efecto antibacteriano mayor al 95 % (experimentos: 103 y 106 UFC/g), observando un mayor efecto del producto a los 7 días de tratamiento frente a 24 h (experimento: 106 UFC/g). También se ha observado que ACAC tuvo un efecto antimicótico mayor al 84 % (experimentos: 103 y 106 UFC/g). El efecto antimicrobiano de ACAC mostró ser mejor frente a los ácidos orgánicos comerciales A y B. Por tanto, el presente estudio ha demostrado que ACAC (tratamiento por 24 horas y 7 días) tiene un buen efecto antibacteriano y antimicótico frente a los agentes patógenos Pseudomonas sp., Escherichia coli, Clostridium perfringes, Salmonella sp., Rhizopus sp., Fusarium sp. y Aspergillus sp., que frecuentemente están presentes en el maíz o pienso destinados a la alimentación de pollos broiler.

Brunfelsia grandiflora is an ancient plant widely used for its promising medicinal properties, although little explored scientifically. Despite being a rich source of phenolic compounds responsible in part for the proven anti-inflammatory activity, its characterization has not been carried out to date. The present work deals with the exhaustive identification and quantification of its phenolic fraction, along with its antioxidant activity. Decoction resulting from the bark as fine powder was filtered and lyophilized, and polyphenols were extracted from the resulting product by aqueous-organic solvents. Seventy-nine polyphenols were identified using LC-MSn. Hydroxycinnamates was the most abundant group of compounds (up to 66.8%), followed by hydroxycoumarins (15.5%), lignans (6.1%), flavonols (5.7%), phenolic simples (3.1), gallates (2.3%), flavanols (0.3%), and flavanones (0.2%). About 64% of the characterized phenols were in their glycosylated forms. The quantification of these phytochemicals by LC-QToF showed that this medicinal plant contained 2014.71 mg of phenolic compounds in 100 g dry matter, which evidences a great antioxidant potency determined by ABTS and DPPH assays. Therefore, Brunfelsia grandiflora represents an important source of polyphenols which supports its therapeutic properties scientifically proven.

It has been proposed that oxidative stress is a pathogenic mechanism to induce cytotoxicity and to cause cardiovascular and neuronal diseases. At present, natural compounds such as plant extracts have been used to reduce the cytotoxic effects produced by agents that induce oxidative stress. Our study aimed to evaluate the antioxidant and cytoprotective capacity of Desmodium tortuosum (D. tortuosum) extract in the co- and pre-treatment in EA.hy926 and SH-SY5Y cell lines subjected to oxidative stress induced by tert-butylhydroperoxide (t-BOOH). Cell viability, reactive oxygen species (ROS), nitric oxide (NO), caspase 3/7 activity, reduced glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione reductase (GR), and molecular expression of oxidative stress biomarkers (SOD2, NRF2 and NFκB1) and cell death (APAF1, BAX, Caspase3) were all evaluated. It was observed that the D. tortuosum extract, in a dose-dependent manner, was able to reduce the oxidative and cytotoxicity effects induced by t-BOOH, even normalized to a dose of 200 µg/mL, which would be due to the high content of phenolic compounds mainly phenolic acids, flavonoids, carotenoids and other antioxidant compounds. Finally, these results are indicators that the extract of D. tortuosum could be a natural alternative against the cytotoxic exposure to stressful and cytotoxic chemical agents.