Eman Shawky

Alexandria University | AU · Faculty of Pharmacy

A crucial subject which has been scarcely investigated is the variation in the relative amounts of the different components of the silymarin in the different organs as affected by the developmental stage. In this study, the effect of phenological growth stages on the accumulation dynamics of total and individual silymarin components in the differen...

The roots of Erythrina lysistemon, growing in Egypt, yielded 24 flavonoid compounds, including 17 pterocarpans, two isoflavanones, one flavanone, two isoflavans, one 2-arylbenzofuran, and an isoflava-3-ene. Nine pterocarpans have not been reported previously (7−9, 11−14, 19, and 20), and 11 are reported here for the first time from this species. St...

The current study attempts to illustrate how the chemical and biological profile of white lupine seeds varies throughout the course of various germination days using UHPLC-QqQ-MS combined to chemometrics. Abscisic acid showed maximum level in the un-germinated seeds and started to decline with seed germination accompanied by an increase in the leve...

Matricaria recutita L.) is considered as one of the most traditionally used plants as medicine and grows almost all over the world. In the current study, ISSR markers were implemented to authenticate German chamomile. In addition to its discrimination from its morphologically related botanical adulterants; Anthemis cotula L., Senecio desfontainei D...

Ethnopharmacological relevance Different Physalis plants have been widely employed in traditional medicine for management of diabetes mellitus. Previous studies with respect to the in vivo antidiabetic activity of Physalis plants illustrated that they improved glucose and lipid metabolism in streptozotocin (STZ) -induced diabetic rats yet the mecha...

Regardless of turmeric curcuminoids' effectiveness and safety, their medicinal potential is constrained in humans because of their diminished oral absorption. Natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES) have been shown to possess a high level of efficiency and environmental sustainability as bioavailability promoters. The goal of this investigation is t...

Many of the plants of genus Salsola are edible halophytes which are known for their use in treatment of inflammation as well as their nutritional content. This study aims at comprehensive chemical profiling of two Salsola species that are widely distributed in arid areas; S. imbricata and S. jordanicola, using UHPLC-QqQ-MS in an attempt to decipher...

Origanum majorana L. (marjoram) has considerable promise as a folk remedy for digestive ailments in addition to its ethnomedicinal use in gynecological disorders. Due to the high demand for the botanical raw material, it is prone to intentional and inadvertent adulteration by morphologically similar herbs. In the current study the adulteration of m...

Marine algae are well-acknowledged as a prime store of largely unexplored extraordinary chemical entities potentially ameliorating against inflammation however, the efficacy mechanism remains elusive. This study offers an integrated strategy of several bioinformatics and computational tools as well as bio-guided fractionation, and multi-step experi...

The epidermis is the first layer of cells on leaves that receive UV-B radiation and the place where guard cells distribute. Their stress response mechanism was different from the mesophyll. However, there has been little research on leaf epidermis. To assess the response mechanism of epidermis to UV-B radiation, tissue-specific proteomics were perf...

In this work, metabolic profiling of the different parts of ground cherry (P. pruinosa) including fruits, calyces, leaves, stems and roots using UPLC-MS/MS analysis combined to chemometric analysis was attempted. A total of 82 chromatographic peaks belonging to different metabolite classes were identified including terpenes, flavonoids genin and gl...

Trigonella plants are semiarid crops grown all over the planet where their seeds and leaves are commonly utilized in cosmetic, medical and therapeutic purposes. Despite substantial research on the seeds, comprehensive study of Trigonella leaves extracts has not been documented. In this work, chemical profiling of T. foenum-graecum, T. maritima, T....

Marine algae have served as a treasure trove of structurally variable and biologically active metabolites. The present study emphasizes on UPLC–MS metabolites fingerprinting for the first systematic broad scale metabolites characterization of three different phyla of marine seaweeds; Ulva fasciata , Pterocladia capillacea and Sargassum hornschuchii...

Morus alba is a woody shrub of the family Moraceae and used as traditional Chinese medicine for a long history. Ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation, as a kind of abiotic stress factor, affected the growth and secondary metabolism in M. alba. Previous studies indicated that the contents of several secondary metabolites such as moracin N, chalcomaricin we...

Background: The different parts of pomegranate fruit are considered powerful mixture of bioactive compounds yet the peels and pulps of the fruits are usually discarded and considered as industrial waste. In this work, UPLC-QqQ -MS was utilised for metabolomics analysis of different parts (peel, pulp, seed and juice) of pomegranate fruit cultivars...

Moracins, a kind of 2-phenyl-benzofuran compound from Moraceae, serve as phytoalexins with antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antitumor, and antidiabetes activities and respond to biotic and abiotic stresses, while their biosynthetic pathway and regulatory mechanism remain unclear. Here, we report a de novo transcriptome sequencing for different tis...

Mulberry leaves have been used in traditional Chinese medicine due to their antioxidant, antidiabetic, and antihyperlipidemic properties. A previous study showed that ultraviolet‐B radiation followed by dark incubation could improve the contents of active ingredients in mulberry leaves, such as moracin N and chalcomoracin. The endoplasmic reticulum...

In the current study, seven Sri Lankan tea grades; Orange Pekoe, Flowery Pekoe, Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings, Broken Orange Pekoe black tea, green tea, silver tips and golden tips white tea grades were subjected to comprehensive metabolic profiling using UPLC-MS/MS combined with chemometrics. Theasensinin C and E, theaflavin and theacitrin were the...

In this work, a green extraction method was investigated to maximize the yield of terpene lactones and minimize that of ginkgolic acids from Ginkgo biloba L. leaves. An HPTLC-MS method for identification of simultaneous determination of terpene trilactones and ginkgolic acids in G. biloba samples was developed and validated. The limit of detection...

Xanthine oxidase (XO) has been well-recognized as a validated target for the treatment of hyperuricemia and gout. Currently, there are two drugs in clinical use that shut down XO overactivity, allopurinol and febuxostat; however, detrimental side effects restrict their applications. Propolis is a unique natural adhesive biomass of structurally vari...

German Chamomile (Matricaria recutita L.) is one of the most consumed herbal teas in the world. Deliberate and undeliberate adulteration in German Chamomile raw material represents serious concerns for consumers’ safety. Authentication of Matricaria recutita L. samples was performed using an integrative approach of DNA barcoding and chemical profil...

Platycladus orientalis L. Franco has many folk uses as it is mainly used to treat inflammatory ailments. UPLC–MS/MS was used for the chemical profiling of P. orientalis leaves. Identified metabolites were forwarded to network pharmacology analysis. Networks were constructed based on STITCH, SEA, DAVID, KEGG and STRING databases and using Cytoscape....

Mesquite (Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) DC.) is widely used in food, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries. Every part of mesquite is used for medicinal purposes. In this work, stems, leaves, flowers and pods of P. juliflora were chemically profiled via UPLC/MS/MS analysis for their valorization as forest by-products with tentative iden...

Colocynth has a long history of use in traditional medicine for treatment of various inflammatory diseases where it is commonly roasted before being applied for medical purposes to reduce its toxicity. This study aims at tracking the effect of heat processing on the metabolic profile of the peels, pulps and seeds of colocynth fruit using UPLC-QqQ-M...

In this study, the seasonal dynamics of the flavonoids in the cones and leaves of oriental Thuja (Platycladus orientalis L. Franco) as well as the in vitro anti-inflammatory activity of their extracts were investigated. The important chemical markers of the studied extracts were determined using untargeted HPTLC profiling, which was further utilize...

Introduction: Aromatase is a CYP450 enzyme that catalyses the conversion of androgens into oestrogens, where the decrease in the production of oestrogens aided by aromatase inhibitors is considered a target in post-menopausal breast cancer therapy. TLC-bioautography is a technique employed for combining chromatographic separations on TLC plates wi...

Chemical profiling of white (Tirmania nivea) and black (Terfezia claveryi) desert truffles using UPLC-MS/MS analysis followed by their discrimination based on their anti-inflammatory biomarkers identified using chemometrics and network pharmacology-based analysis was attempted. 25 compounds were identified using UPLC/MS/MS analysis in the extracts...

Echinacea species roots and aerial parts are considered among the most popular plants used worldwide for management of common cold and other upper respiratory infections. This study aims at revealing the immu-nomodulatory biomarkers amid the diverse metabolites in the roots and herbs of the most widely used Echinacea species; E. purpurea, E. angust...

Legumes are the main sources of folates which are not synthesized in the human body. The five folate species: 5-methyl tetrahydrofolate, tetrahydrofolate, pteroyl glutamate, 5-formyl tetrahydrofolate and 10-formyl tetrahydrofolate were quantitatively determined in legumes seeds and sprouts by a newly developed and validated high performance thin la...

Chemical investigation of flower and seed extracts of Erythrina caffra Thunb., Fabaceae, resulted in the isolation of an undescribed alkaloid, 11β-methoxy-8-oxoerythraline, and its structural characterization is reported here, along with nine known alkaloids: crystamidine, 8-oxoerythraline, 11β-methoxyerythraline, erythraline, erythrinine, 8-oxoery...

The aim of this work was to analyze the composition of oriental cedar volatile oils (Platycladus orientalis (L.) Franco) obtained from leaves and cones, over one season cycle to study the effect of climate conditions on the chemical composition as well as antimicrobial activities of the collected oils. The oils yield varied according to the plant p...

Aromatase inhibitors are important in certain cancers such as breast cancer in postmenopausal women. In this study, eight constituents from Artemisia annua L. and Vitex agnus-castus L. were isolated and evaluated for their aromatase inhibitory activity using in-vitro fluorimetric assay. All tested compounds possessed moderate to strong inhibitory a...

In the current study, propolis samples from various geographical localities in Egypt were investigated by chemical profiling and xanthine oxidase (XO) inhibitory and radical scavenging activity testing. Metabolic fingerprints were attained using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS), UHPLC-MS...

The content of atropine and scopolamine is known to vary with ontogeny and plant organs selected which makes it necessary to define the optimal stage for harvesting of each plant organ. The present study aims at investigating the effect of ontogeny on the accumulation of atropine and scopolamine in the leaves, stems, roots, flowers and fruits of th...

Since the outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 in December 2019, there has been no vaccine or specific antiviral medication for treatment of the infection where supportive care and prevention of complications is the current management strategy. In this work, the potential use of medicinal plants and more than 16 500 of th...

German Chamomile is known to be one of the most widely used plants in the growing market of herbal drugs due to its vast range of medicinal and therapeutic properties. The high demand on the plant raw material makes it prone to deliberate as well as unintentional adulteration by other morphologically-resembling flowers. Adulteration by potentially...

Cupressuflavone is a major biflavonoid in many member of the family Cupressaceae and considered the main chemotaxonomic marker for Cupressus species. Despite the abundance of cupressuflavone, it has not been intensively investigated as compared to other biflavonoids. The current study illustrates, for the first time, a comparative analysis on the c...

Ethnopharmacological relevance Juniperus plants are considered important sources of cedar-wood oil which is used widely in folk medicine as antiseptic and in treatment of inflammatory disorders such as, rheumatoid arthritis but there is not enough scientific evidence to support the claimed uses and there is no specification of a certain Juniperus s...

The presented work discusses the development of a rapid and precise analytical protocol using near infrared spectroscopy combined with multivariate data analysis to authenticate, detect and quantify most of the commonly encountered plant adulterants used in fraud of saffron stigmas including safflower, pomegranate fruit peel, calendula flower, papr...

Ethnopharmacological relevance: The fruits of Nandina domestica Thunb. have served as folk medicines in Chinese and Japanese tradition for treatment of several tumors including pharynx tumor and tooth abscess for many years, yet its exact mechanism of action is not yet known. Aim of the study: The study targets the identification of the main consti...

Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) hyphenated to bioassays is a modern tool used for discovery of drugs with diverse biological activities from plant extracts which justifies the continuous need for developing such methods. A new TLC–bioautography assay for detecting peroxidase enzyme inhibitors was developed and validated in this study. Peroxidases a...

The application of a newly developed HPTLC-bioautography assay for detecting peroxidase enzyme inhibitors in plant extracts in addition to bioautography methods for detecting antioxidant compounds resulted in the isolation of a new biflavonoid 3 0-methoxy sahranflavone along with two known biflavonoids and three flavonoids from the leaves and cones...

A strategy combining untargeted and targeted chemical profiling for discrimination of the different subspecies of Hedera helix L (Ivy) based on HPTLC fingerprints and antioxidant and antimicrobial activity testing followed by chemometric analysis has been implemented for the first time for the holistic profiling of bioactive secondary metabolites i...

In order to identify new aromatase enzyme inhibitors, thirty aryl sulfonamide derivatives containing an indole nucleus have been synthesized. The enzyme inhibition assay showed that four compounds inhibit aromatase in the sub-micromolar range. Loading concentrations of these four compounds were afterwards tested for cell viability and cytotoxicity...

Near Infrared (NIR) method combined with chemometrics was utilized to achieve the target of deeper insight into the chemical diversity and to discriminate the different species and chemovarieties of Citrus peels. Unsupervised principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were used for comparing of samples. A clear separ...

Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors remain the class of drugs used for the treatment of Alzheimer disease (AD). For the aim of discovering new sources of potent AChE inhibitors, a combined AChE-inhibitory activity together with alkaloid profiles by GC-MS, combined with multivariate statistical analysis for biomarkers determination and in silico...

Ethnopharmacological relevance Nowadays, cancer is considered one of the leading causes of death in developing countries. Due to mediocre socioeconomic status of many of the North African countries, people resort to traditional medicine from natural products for cancer therapy which are of great chemical complexity, interacting with several protein...

Herbal therapy is considered as the new world attitude; this might be attributed to the safety offered by the natural medicinal products with respect to the traditional synthetic therapeutic agents. Berberidaceae, family comprising 14 genera and 701 species of perennial herbs and shrubs. Phytochemical investigation of Ethyl acetate fraction of drie...

A phytochemical investigation of the alkaloidal content of the bulbs of Narcissus pseudonarcissus cultivated in Egypt resulted in the isolation of the alkaloid; 9-O-demethyl-7-O-methyllycorenine (5) in addition to the eight known alkaloids; homolycorine (1), 7-O-methyloduline (2), 7-O-methyllycorenine (3), hippeastrine (4), 9-O-demethylhomolycorine...

Abstract Ethnopharmacological relevance The traditional use of Amaryllidaceae plants to treat many disease have been known for a very long period of time. The chemical analysis of these plants has yielded a diversity of alkaloids with analgesic, anticholinergic, antitumor and antiviral activities. Crinum bulbispermum (Burm.f.) Milne-Redh. & Schwei...

Parallel to the growing global interest in alternative medical therapies, high measures of counterfeit pharmaceuticals enter the global market and, therefore, detection of such marketed products is essential. This article throws an illuminating spot on the adulteration of Cinnamomum verum (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) with Cinnamomum cassia and exhaustiv...

An undisputed trend in sample preparation at present is to meet the requirements of green chemistry especially in the field of natural products. Green technology continuously pursues new solvents to replace common organic solvents that possess inherent toxicity. Over the past two decades, non-ionic surfactants have gained enormous attention from th...

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Aromatase enzyme (CYP19) is widely known as a critical target protein for treating hormone-dependent breast cancer. Natural products from traditional medicinal plants continue to be an active source of aromatase inhibitors. Meanwhile, high cost of experimental work and low hit rate associated with HTS have stimulate...

Dihydrokaempferol-4'-O-glucopyranoside, a flavanonol glucoside, is the major compound in the flower of Alcea rosea L. which possesses significant antioxidant and anticancer activity against HepG-2 cell line and thus can be considered a marker compound for A. rosea L. We attempted to establish a new simple, validated high-performance thin-layer chro...

Introduction: Species of Apiaceae are used in folk medicine as spices and in officinal medicinal preparations of drugs. They are an excellent source of phenolics exhibiting antioxidant activity, which are of great benefit to human health. Discrimination among Apiaceae medicinal herbs remains an intricate challenge due to their morphological simila...

Objectives The large number of publications about Amaryllidaceae alkaloids reflects the abundance and variety in biological activity of these alkaloids. An insilico approach was implemented in this work to rationalize the individual alkaloids to molecular biological activity. Methods A database was generated containing 313 Amaryllidaceae alkaloids...

The evaluation of extraction protocols for untargeted and targeted metabolomics was implemented for root and aerial organs of Astragalus spinosus in this work. The efficiency and complementarity of commonly used extraction solvents, namely petroleum ether, methylene chloride, ethyl acetate and n-butanol were considered for method evaluation using c...

A new high-throughput method was developed for the simultaneous analysis of isoflavones and soya-saponnins in Soy (Glycine max L.) products by high-performance thin-layer chromatography with den-sitometry and multiple detection. Silica gel was used as the stationary phase and ethyl acetate: methanol:water:acetic acid (100:20:16:1, v/v/v/v) as the m...

Amaryllidaceae is a well-known family for its high alkaloidal content. These alkaloids comprise a unique group of bases that have been found to occur in this family. The Amaryllidaceae alkaloids represent a large and still expanding group of isoquinoline alkaloids, the majority of which are not known to occur in any other family of plants. This art...

In this article, we report on the alkaloid profile and dynamic of alkaloid content and diversity in two Narcissus plants at different stages of development. The alkaloid profile of the two Narcissus species was investigated by GC/MS and HPTLC. Fifty eight Amaryllidaceae alkaloids were detected, and 25 of them were identified in the different organs...

This study compares the chloroform extracts of bulbs and roots of Narcissus papyraceus Ker Gawl. and Narcissus tazetta L. The cytotoxicity of the plant extracts was evaluated against human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line (HEPG2) and colon carcinoma cell line (HCT116) in comparison to doxorubicin. The extracts from the after-flowering (AF) bulbs...

A phytochemical investigation of Spergularia marina (L.) Griseb. growing in Egypt, has been carried out, which resulted in the isolation of seven compounds from the different extracts of the plant namely; β-sitosterol glucoside, tricin (1) dihydroferulic acid (2), vanillic acid (3), 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (4), uracil (5) and 8-hydroxy cuminoic acid...

This paper presents the development and validation of an improved method for the simultaneous analysis of synephrine and octopamine using high-performance thin-layer chromatography with densitometric detection. Separation was performed on silica gel 60F254 plates. The mobile phase is comprised of methanol, ethylacetate, methylene chloride and conce...

A simple, sensitive, precise and robust high-performance thin-layer chromatographic (HPTLC) method for analysis of tricin has been developed and validated for the determination of tricin in genus Spergularia. Analysis of tricin was performed on pre-coated TLC aluminum plates with silica gel as the stationary phase. Linear ascending development was...

Background: Inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), the key enzyme in the breakdown of acetylcholine, is considered as a promising strategy for the treatment of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, senile dementia, ataxia, and myasthenia gravis. A potential source of AChE inhibitors is certainly provided by the abundance of plants...

A high-performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) method for the simultaneous quantitative determination of diosmin and hes-peridin in citrus fruit extracts and in pharmaceutical preparations was developed. Conditions were also optimized for best possible extraction of diosmin and hesperidin by using different solvents (water, methanol, and DMSO...

Inhibition of acetylcholinesterase, the key enzyme in the breakdown of acetylcholine, is considered as a promising strategy for the treatment of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, senile dementia and myasthenia gravis. A potential source ofAChE inhibitors is certainly provided by the abundance of plants belonging to family Amaryll...

The work reported in this paper aims at developing an accurate, specific, repeatable and robust HPTLC method for the determination of galanthamine in different Amaryllidaceae plant extracts.

A phytochemical investigation of the bulbs and flowers of Hymenocallis littoralis SALISB., cultivated in Egypt, was carried out, which resulted in the isolation of four alkaloids, lycorine (1), hippeastrine (2), 11-hydroxyvittatine (3), and (+)-8-O-demethylmaritidine (4), and of two flavonoids, quercetin 3'-O-glucoside (5), and rutin (6). The volat...

A rapid, accurate, specific, repeatable and robust HPTLC method for the determination of lycorine in different Amaryllidaceae plant extracts is presented in this work. No article related to the HPTLC determination of lycorine in plant extracts has been reported in literature. Lycorine, a common alkaloid of family Amaryllidaceae, moreover, there hav...

The work presented in this paper demonstrates the use of HPTLC-UV to quantify rutin in the alcoholic extract of Amaryllis belladonna L. (Family Amaryllidaceaea) flowers which was detected, isolated and identified in previous work. The results obtained by HPTLC showed excellent accuracy and precision when compared to the spectrophotometric method.

A new lycorine-type alkaloid, named (-)-amarbellisine, was isolated from the bulbs of Egyptian Amaryllis belladonna L. together with the well known alkaloids (-)-lycorine, (-)-pancracine, (+)-vittatine, (+)-11-hydroxyvittatine, and (+)-hippeastrine. The new alkaloid, containing the pyrrolo[de]phenanthridine ring system, was essentially characterise...