Amandine Nachtergael

University of Mons · Department of Therapeutic Chemistry and Pharmacognosy

In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) recorded 14 million new cases of cancer and 8.2 million cancer-related deaths. Remarkably, the WHO estimates that 30 % of cancer mortalities are due to lifestyle choices and environmental factors that can and should be avoided. In line with these recommendations, this chapter discusses the genotoxicity a...

In the 1990's, a Belgian cohort of more than 100 patients reported cases of Aristolochic Acid Nephropathy (AAN). This progressive renal and interstitial fibrosis, frequently associated with urothelial malignancies, was consecutive to the Chinese-herbs based slimming capsules intake where a plant Stephania tetrandra S. Moore was replaced by a highly...

Catalysts are commonly used in polymer synthesis. Traditionally, catalysts used to be metallic compounds but some studies have pointed out their toxicity for human health and environment and the removal of metal impurities from synthetic polymer is quite expensive. To address these issues, organocatalysts have been intensively synthetized and are n...

The present study aimed to qualitatively assess the influence of Chenopodium quinoa Willd. varieties (INIAP-Tunkahuan, INIAP-Pata de Venado varieties and Chimborazo genotype), phenological stages (40, 60, and 80 days), and places of cultivation (Pichincha and Chimborazo Ecuadorian provinces) on the leaf and seed phenolic composition and biological...

Ethnopharmacological relevance Knowledge of the high-sale medicinal plants and their authentication are essential parameters to ensure the safety of people using herbal medicine and to plan the safeguarding of medicinal species threatened with extinction. Aims The present study, carried out in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, aimed to geol...

In order to evaluate the efficacy of the root bark powder of Oldfieldia dactylophylla (Welw. ex Oliv.) J. Léonard (a Picrodendraceae), 32 locally breed grazing goats naturally infested with various gastrointestinal helminths were randomly assigned to four groups of eight animals: one untreated control, one positive control group treated with a refe...

Background: In Burundi, five plants, namely Urtica massaica Mildbr., Mikania natalensis DC., Senecio maranguensis O. Hoffm., Justicia nyassana Lindau and Helichrysum congolanum Schltr. & O. Hoffm., are widely cited for the treatment of infectious diseases. The present work aims to compare the local knowledge and uses of these five popular anti-infe...

Although non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) presents as an intricate condition characterized by a growing prevalence, the often-recommended lifestyle interventions mostly lack high-level evidence of efficacy and there are currently no effective drugs proposed for this indication. The present review delves into NAFLD pathology, its diverse un...

Natural products are generally considered as safe and reliable, whereas they could represent a real danger for public health. Indeed, many herbs are either directly reactive towards DNA or likely to disturb cellular homoeostasis, cell cycle and/or genome maintenance mechanisms. Genotoxicity refers to the deleterious effect of a chemical compound or...

The interaction between SARS-CoV-2 spike RBD and ACE2 proteins is a crucial step for host cell infection by the virus. Without it, the entire virion entrance mechanism is compromised. The aim of this study was to evaluate the capacity of various natural product classes, including flavonoids, anthraquinones, saponins, ivermectin, chloroquine, and er...

Gastrointestinal parasite (GIP) infections control has an important role to play in increasing livestock production from a limited natural resource base and to improve animal health and welfare. This study aimed to collect indigenous knowledge and identify wild plants locally used by goat smallholders of three territories of Haut-Katanga province f...

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an autosomal recessive blood disorder characterized by red blood cells that assume an abnormal, rigid sickle shape under low-oxygen conditions. These sickle-shaped erythrocytes tend to lyse, aggregate, and obstruct small blood vessels, leading to major complications. The present study aims to investigate properties that...

Herbal remedies used in traditional medicine often contain several compounds combined in order to potentiate their own intrinsic properties. However, herbs can sometimes cause serious health troubles. In Belgium, patients who developed severe aristolochic acid nephropathy ingested slimming pills containing root extracts of an Aristolochia species,...

Objectives Considering that the 3 Rs of regulation (replacing, reducing, and refining) are meant to reduce the number and suffering of research animals and that current two-dimension (2D) in vitro and animals models do not completely mimic the human presentation of the disease, there is a growing demand to develop alternative models. Therefore, we...

Tetrahydroisoquinoline (THIQ) alkaloids and their derivatives have a structural similarity to 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP), a well-known neurotoxin. THIQs seem to present a broad range of actions in the brain, critically dependent on their catechol moieties and metabolism. These properties make it reasonable to assume that an...

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and cancers are the two main causes of death worldwide. The initiation and progression of atherosclerosis is, in large part, caused by oxidized low-density lipoproteins (oxLDL); interestingly, oxLDL may also play a role in cancer cell metabolism and migration. As oxLDL are generally obtained by tedious ultracentrifugat...

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the desire of the Ministry of Health to integrate Traditional African Medicine into the Official Health System remains limited by the lack of reliable data on several aspects of this medicine. This study aims to determine the perceptions of the Lubumbashi population towards Traditional African Medicine and the c...

In this work, a simple, fast (10 min) and environmentally friendly extraction method using deep eutectic solvents (DES), based on choline chloride and glycerol, was established to extract saponins from five quinoa samples: a) husks of bitter seeds, b) bitter seeds, c) water-washed bitter seeds, d) sweet seeds of the INIAP-Tunkahuan variety, and e)...

Medicinal plants have been used for a very long time to improve human health; they are gaining increasing popularity globally as drugs, complementary and alternative medicines, food supplements, cosmetics and, more surprisingly, as medical devices. The complexity of herbs and extracts, supplied to such a wide range of markets and in different requl...

Medicinal plants have been used for a very long time to improve human health; they are gaining increasing popularity globally as drugs, complementary and alternative medicines, food supplements, cosmetics and, more surprisingly, as medical devices. The complexity of herbs and extracts, supplied to such a wide range of markets and in different requl...

Translesion synthesis is a DNA damage tolerance mechanism that relies on a series of specialized DNA polymerases able to bypass a lesion on a DNA template strand during replication or post-repair synthesis. Specialized translesion synthesis DNA polymerases pursue replication by inserting a base opposite to this lesion, correctly or incorrectly depe...

In this study, we showed that crude extract of Anisomeles indica (AI-EtE) expressed its toxicity to HeLa cells with an IC50 dose of 38.8 µg/mL and to zebrafish embryos with malformations, lethality and hatching inhibition at 72-hpf at doses higher than 75 µg/mL. More interestingly, flow cytometry revealed that AI-EtE significantly promoted the numb...

Following a decision of the European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) Commission, the Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM) Working Party started a pilot phase to examine the suitability of a high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) minimum content test as an alternative to the classical assay in TCM monographs. This approach was evaluated with two...

This study was carried out in order to investigate the safety of Drepanoalpha hard hard capsules, a phytomedicine used for the management of sickle cell disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo by the acute and sub-acute administration in Guinea pigs. The hard capsules were dissolved in saline normal solution (NaCl 0.9 %). The animals were rando...

Introduction Les remèdes phytothérapiques associent souvent plusieurs composés censés potentialiser leurs propriétés intrinsèques. En Belgique, il est probable que les patientes ayant développé une néphropathie aux acides aristolochiques (AA) aient ingéré des racines broyées d’Aristolochia mais aussi des écorces de Magnolia officinalis dont certain...

Ethnopharmacological relevance Clerodendrum cyrtophyllum Turcz, a plant belonging to the Verbenaceae family, has been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of various inflammatory diseases in many Asian countries. Aim of the study: The study aimed to evaluate anti-inflammatory properties of the ethanol extract from Clerodendrum cyrthophyll...

Quantitative correlations between the contents of the flavonolignans silychristin A and silybins A/B provide biosynthetic clues that support a pathway in which one mesomeric form of a taxifolin radical is undergoing an oxidative coupling with a coniferyl alcohol radical. The flavonolignan content and patterns reported in the literature for 53 sampl...

Background Education of asthmatic patients is vital in the therapeutic process to improve the control of the disease, especially in children and in the adolescent population. In 2011, a close collaboration between a paediatrician and a clinical pharmacist led to the creation of a ‘school of asthma’ in the paediatric ward (SAPW) of our hospital. The...

This is one of the ten articles in the second of three special supplements of Science on the Art and Science of Traditional Medicine. This article, in pages S47-S49, describes an integrated approach to herbal medicinal products. Attached please find the whole Science special supplements.

Introduction: Mass spectrometry (MS) has become an ideal tool for the complex analysis of herbal medicines as it can provide high sensitivity and highly specific chemical information. Compared with HPLC-DAD, UPLC–MS can provide more peak capacity, more effective resolution and shorter run time in the chromatographic separation, and more detection s...

Double-strand breaks (DSBs) may result from endogenous (e.g., reactive oxygen species, variable (diversity) joining, meiotic exchanges, collapsed replication forks, nucleases) or exogenous (e.g., ionizing radiation, chemotherapeutic agents, radiomimetic compounds) events. DSBs disrupt the integrity of DNA and failed or improper DSBs repair may lead...

Double-strand breaks (DSBs) may result from endogenous (e.g., reactive oxygen species, variable (diversity) joining, meiotic exchanges, collapsed replication forks, nucleases) or exogenous (e.g., ionizing radiation, chemotherapeutic agents, radiomimetic compounds) events. DSBs disrupt the integrity of DNA and failed or improper DSBs repair may lead...

The contribution of quorum sensing in some phenotypic and pathogenic characteristics of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was studied. The production of acylhomoserine lactones (AHL) by planktonic cultures of 8 clinical and reference strains of P. aeruginosa was evaluated using two biosensors. The adhesion of the bacteria on a surface (Biofilm Ring Test®), th...