Erika Liktor

University of Arizona | UA · Department of Pathology

Pain prevalence among adults in the United States has increased 25% over the past two decades, resulting in high health-care costs and impacts to patient quality of life. In the last 30 years, our understanding of pain circuits and (intra)cellular mechanisms has grown exponentially, but this understanding has not yet resulted in improved therapies....

Background: Several chronic pain disorders, such as migraine and fibromyalgia, have an increased prevalence in the female population. The underlying mechanisms of this sex-biased prevalence have yet to be thoroughly documented but could be related to endogenous differences in neuromodulators in pain networks, including the endocannabinoid system. T...

The therapeutic utility of opioids is diminished by their ability to induce rewarding behaviors that may lead to opioid use disorder. Recently, the endogenous cannabinoid system has emerged as a hot topic in the study of opioid reward but relatively little is known about how repeated opioid exposure may affect the endogenous cannabinoid system in t...

Background Sex hormones have been implicated in pH regulation of numerous physiological systems. One consistent factor of these studies is the sodium-hydrogen exchanger 1 (NHE1). NHE1 has been associated with pH homeostasis at epithelial barriers. Hormone fluctuations have been implicated in protection and risk for breaches in blood brain barrier (...

Recent findings suggested that Clinical Endocannabinoid Deficiency underlies the pathophysiology of pain disorders, including migraine and headache. In models of medication overuse headache induced by sustained administration of sumatriptan or morphine, 2-AG levels were selectively depleted in the periaqueductal gray (PAG) and anandamide (AEA) incr...

Introduction: An escalating number of fatalities resulting from accidental opioid overdoses typically attributed to respiratory depression continue to define the opioid epidemic. Opioid respiratory depression results from a decrease in reflexive inspiration within the preBö tzinger complex in the brainstem. Objective: Cannabinoid receptor agonism i...

Disruption of blood-brain barrier integrity and dramatic failure of brain ion homeostasis including fluctuations of pH occurs during cortical spreading depression (CSD) events associated with several neurological disorders, including migraine with aura, traumatic brain injury and stroke. NHE1 is the primary regulator of pH in the central nervous sy...

Disruption of blood-brain barrier integrity and dramatic failure of brain ion homeostasis including fluctuations of pH occurs during cortical spreading depression (CSD) events associated with several neurological disorders, including migraine with aura, traumatic brain injury and stroke. NHE1 is the primary regulator of pH in the central nervous sy...

Cortical spreading depression (CSD) in the CNS is suggested as a common mechanism contributing to headache. Despite strong evidence for CNS involvement in headache disorders, drug development for headache disorders remains focused on peripheral targets. Difficulty in delivering drugs across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) may partially account for th...

We investigated the genome of a 5-year-old male who presented with global developmental delay (motor, cognitive, and speech), hypotonia, possibly ataxia, and cerebellar hypoplasia of unknown origin. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) and mRNA sequencing (RNA-seq) were performed on a family having an affected proband, his unaffected parents, and maternal...

One-hundred and sixty-eight aqueous and organic extracts of 42 selected bryophyte species were screened in vitro for antiproliferative activity on a panel of human gynecological cancer cell lines containing HeLa (cervix epithelial adenocarcinoma), A2780 (ovarian carcinoma), and T47D (invasive ductal breast carcinoma) cells using the 3-(4,5-dimethyl...

Objective Diterpene alkaloids are secondary plant metabolites and chemotaxonomical markers with a strong biological activity. These compounds are characteristic for the Ranunculaceae family, while their occurrence in other taxa is rare. Several species of the Spiraea genus (Rosaceae) are examples of this rarity. Screening Spiraea species for alkalo...

Ten representative Central European phellinoid Hymenochaetaceae species (Phellinus sensu lato) were selected to examine their potential pharmacological activity. In this study 40 organic (n-hexane, chloroform, 50% methanol) and aqueous extracts with different polarities were analyzed for their antimicrobial, antioxidant, and xanthine oxidase (XO)−i...

Plants belonging to the genus Rumex (family Polygonaceae) are used worldwide in traditional medicine for the treatment of various diseases caused by different microorganisms (e.g. bacteria-related dermatologic conditions, dysentery and enteritis). The present study focused on the antibacterial screening of Rumex species native to the Carpathian Bas...

The main objective of this project was to investigate the antibacterial activity of 19 species (Juncus acutus, J. alpinoarticulatus, J. articulatus, J. compressus, J. conglomeratus, J. effusus, J. filiformis, J. gerardii, J. inflexus, J. maritimus, J. monanthos, J. squarrosus, J. tenuis, J. trifidus, Luzula campestris, L. forsteri, L. luzuloides, L...

The present study has focused on an investigation of the antibacterial effects of Juncus inflexus and the isolation and identification of its active compounds. Eleven phenanthrenes were isolated from a methanolic extract of the roots. Four compounds (jinflexins A-D, 1-4) are new natural products, while seven phenanthrenes [juncuenins A (5), B (6),...

Unlabelled: This study aimed to screen the antibacterial activity of 160 extracts of 40 mushroom species, collected in Hungary, against 11 standard bacterial strains and 9 clinical isolates. The further objective of this work was to evaluate the capacity of active fungal extracts to potentiate the action of antibiotics against resistant pathogens....

The aim of the present study was the evaluation of the antimicrobial and antiproliferative activities of selected Saharan species, which are applied in the traditional medicine but not studied thoroughly from chemical and pharmacological point of view. The studied plants, namely Anthyllis henoniana, Centropodia forskalii, Cornulaca monacantha, Ephe...

The landscape of southern Tunisia areas is dominated by shrubs and woody plant species. Their morphological and physiological features being suitable for arid and Saharan bioclimate. It can be estimated that their phytochemical characteristics and metabolic activities are in accordance with the environment, and the plants have special spectrum of s...

The increasing prevalence of multidrug resistant pathogens encourages the development of new antimicrobial agents. Plants of the Juncaceae family accumulate a high diversity of phenanthrene type compounds, which have attracted great interest from phytochemical and pharmacological points of view. Previously the cytotoxic, antimicrobial, antiviral an...

The genus Melampyrum, belonging to the Scrophulariaceae family, represents about 25 species of herbaceous annual plants found in the Northern hemisphere. In traditional medicine, aerial parts of Melampyrum species have been used to alleviate rheumatic complaints, symptoms of gout and to treat different skin infections in decoction form [1 – 2]. The...

The bryophytes comprising of liverworts (Marchantiophyta), mosses (Bryophyta) and hornworts (Anthocerotophyta), can be found everywhere in the world except in the sea. In the Hungarian flora, more than 600 species are present, with the predominance of mosses. Although not applied in human nutrition, a number of bryophytes have been widely used as m...

Nosocomial infection became a major problem not only in hospitals, but worldwide as it can cause endemic diseases. The uncontrolled usage of antibiotics led to the increased number of resistant bacteria strains. The aim of our study was to find new compounds from plants with potential antibacterial properties on several resistant strains. The membe...

The leaves of Morus alba L. have a long history in Traditional Chinese Medicine and also became valued by the ethnopharmacology of many other cultures. The worldwide known antidiabetic use of the drug has been suggested to arise from a complex combination effect of various constituents. Moreover, the drug is also a potential antihyperuricemic agent...

Newly designed bivalent ligands-opioid agonist/NK1-antagonists have been synthesized. The synthesis of new starting materials-carboxy-derivatives of Fentanyl (1a-1c) was developed. These products have been transformed to 'isoimidium perchlorates' (2a-c). The new isoimidium perchlorates have been successfully implemented in nucleophilic addition rea...

The leaves of white mulberry (Morus alba L.) are widely used in the traditional medicine of the type II diabetes mellitus. Several groups of plant metabolites are held to be responsible for the complex antidiabetic effect of the drug: iminosugars, flavonoids and other phenolic compounds, ecdysteroids, glycoproteins, and, as we recently suggested, m...

Three new natural ecdysteroids viz. 22-dehydro-20-deoxy-ajugasterone C (1), 1-hydroxy-22-deoxy-20,21-didehydro-ecdysone (2) and 22-deoxy-20,21-didehydro-ecdysone (3) were isolated from the methanol extract of the roots of Serratula wolffii. The structures of compounds 1-3 were established by various spectroscopic techniques, including one- and two-...

Three new and one known ecdysteroids were identified in the MeOH extract of the roots of Serratula wolffii. The new compounds isolated were (11α)-11-hydroxyshidasterone (1), (2β,3α,5β,14β,22R)-2,3,20,22,25-pentahydroxycholest-7-en-6-one (2), and (2β,3α,5β,22R)-2,3,20,22,25-pentahydroxycholest-7-en-6-one (3), together with the known ponasterone A (4...

The antidiabetic effect of the leaves of the white mulberry tree, Morus alba (Moraceae), is well known by the traditional medicine worldwide. Several constituents may contribute to the effect, such as iminosugars, ecdysteroids, phenolic compounds and glycoproteins. Presently the iminosugars are held to be the chief anditidiabetic constituents of th...

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Two new ecdysteroids, named serfurosterone A and serfurosterone B, were isolated from a methanol extract of the roots of Serratula wolffii. Spectroscopic methods revealed that these compounds had previously unknown ecdysteroid structures with acetal functions in the side-chains.

Investigation of the methanol extract of the roots of Serratula wolffii resulted in an ecdysone-related compound, 2 beta,3 beta,20R,22R,25-pentahydroxy-5 beta-cholest-6,8(14)-dien (1), a new ecdysteroid, 24-methylene-shidasterone (2), the known compound stachysterone B (3) and its 14,15-alpha-epoxide (4), a novel natural product. The structures of...

Two new natural ecdysteroids, 20,22-didehydrotaxisterone (1) and 1-hydroxy-20,22-didehydrotaxisterone (2), were isolated from the roots of Serratula wolffii. Their structures were elucidated by 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. The biological activities of these compounds were determined via oral aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum (Harris))...