Marcus T Scotti

Universidade Federal da Paraíba | UFPB · Departamento de Química

Natural products are compounds that are isolated from plants, provide a variety of lead structures for the development of new drugs by the pharmaceutical industry. The interest in these substances increases because of their beneficial effects on human health, which include antiviral, antiallergic, antiplatelet, anti-inflammatory, antitumor, antioxi...

Benzodiazepine (BZ or BZD) is a class of gabaminergic psychoactive chemicals used in hypnotics, sedation, in the treatment of anxiety and others CNS disorders. These drugs include alprazolam (Xanax), diazepam (Valium), clonazepam (Klonopin) and others. There are two distinct types of pharmacological binding sites for benzodiazepines in the brain (B...

This study analysed the phytochemical profile of Acmella oleracea extract and the molecular interactions of its main compounds with TRPV1 and CB2, target receptors in the Burning Mouth Syndrome (BMS) pathogenesis. The phytochemical profile of A. oleracea’s floral buds extract treated with activated charcoal (TCEE) was analysed by High-Performance L...

Introduction: Brain tumors have high morbidity and mortality rates, accounting for 1.4% of all cancers. Gliomas are the most common primary brain tumors in adults. Currently, several thera-peutic approaches are used; however, they are associated with side effects that affect pa-tients'quality of life. Therefore, further studies are needed to devel...

Understanding the origins of past and present viral epidemics is critical in preparing for future outbreaks. Many viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, have led to significant consequences not only due to their virulence, but also because we were unprepared for their emergence. We need to learn from large amounts of data accumulated from well-studied, pas...

Cancer is a multifactorial disease that continues to increase. Lignans are known to be important anticancer agents. However, due to the structural diversity of lignans, it is difficult to associate anticancer activity with a particular subclass. Therefore, the present study sought to evaluate the association of lignan subclasses with antitumor acti...

This work focuses on investigating solvents for the catalyst-free synthesis of 2-amino-4H-chromenes from salicylaldehydes and malononitrile through the Knoevenagel-Michael sequential reaction. The use of ethanol under reflux conditions resulted in the production of several 2-amino-4H-chromenes 5(a-g) with high isolated yields (75-93%) within a shor...

Background: Skin aging is a natural process resulting from intrinsic (hormonal and genetic) and extrinsic (environmental) factors. Photoaging occurs due to prolonged exposure of the skin to ultraviolet radiation, accounting for 80% of facial aging. Introduction: Characteristics of aging skin include reduced elasticity, the appearance of fine wri...

Chagas' disease affects approximately eight million people throughout the world, especially the poorest individuals. The protozoan that causes this disease-Trypanosoma cruzi-has the enzyme cruzipain, which is the main therapeutic target. As no available medications have satisfactory effectiveness and safety, it is of fundamental importance to desig...

Toxoplasmosis, caused by the obligate intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii, affects about one-third of the world's population and can cause severe congenital, neurological and ocular issues. Current treatment options are limited, and there are no human vaccines available to prevent transmission. Drug repurposing has been effective in identifyin...

The emergence of antimicrobial resistance has generated global concerns regarding many pathogenic microorganisms, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The inhibition of microbial molecular targets by natural products has led to the discovery of new paths capable of reverting resistance to classical antimicrobial agents. Neocalyptroc...

Leishmaniasis constitutes a complex of endemic and neglected diseases with high morbidity and mortality rates. Due to the toxicity, resistance profile and adverse effects of current drugs, science is looking for new therapeutic alternatives. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate in silico and in vitro tests the leishmanicidal po...

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cancer is the second cause of death worldwide, responsible for almost 10 million deaths and accounting for one in every six deaths. It is a disease that can affect any organ or tissue with rapid progression to the final stage, which is metastasis, in which the disease spreads to different regions of...

The importance of R&D of new antivirals has been highly evident with the emergence of the pandemic caused by SARS‐CoV‐2. Pyrimidines are heterocyclic compounds with a broad biological spectrum. In this review we emphasize the antiviral application of pyrimidines. Scientific articles, drug and patent registrations were searched using terms involving...

Cancer is a multifactorial disease that continues to increase. Lignans are known to be important anticancer agents. However, due to the structural diversity of lignans, it is difficult to associate anticancer activity with a particular subclass. Therefore, the present study sought to evaluate the association of lignan subclasses with antitumor acti...

Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck (Rutaceae), commonly known as the sweet orange, is a popular and widely consumed fruit with several medicinal properties. The present study aimed to perform the in silico screening of 18 flavonoids and eight volatile components from the peel of C. sinensis against apoptotic and inflammatory proteins, metalloprotease, and...

Chalcones are direct precursors in the biosynthesis of flavonoids. They have an α,β-unsaturated carbonyl system which gives them broad biological properties. Among the biological properties exerted by chalcones, their ability to suppress tumors stands out, in addition to their low toxicity. In this perspective, the present work explores the role of...

The use of agrochemicals has become a standard practice worldwide to ensure the productivity and quality of sugarcane crops. This study aimed to analyze the metabolic changes in sugarcane culms treated with five different nematicides. The experimental design was randomized in blocks, and agro-industrial and biometric variables were evaluated. The s...

Introduction: Despite numerous scientific advances, cancer continues to be one of the main causes of death in the world. This situation has driven the search for promising molecules. Lichen substances have been widely described for their pharmacological potential. The present study evaluated the antitumour potential of a depsidone isolated from Pa...

The bifunctional enzyme Dihydrofolate reductase-thymidylate synthase (DHFR-TS) plays a crucial role in the survival of the Leishmania parasite, as folates are essential cofactors for purine and pyrimidine nucleotide biosynthesis. However, DHFR inhibitors are largely ineffective in controlling trypanosomatid infections, largely due to the presence o...

Essential oils (EOs) are a promising source for novel environmentally safe insecticides. However, the structural diversity of their compounds poses challenges to accurately elucidate their biological mechanisms of action. We present a new chemoinformatics methodology aimed at predicting the impact of essential oil (EO) compounds on the molecular ta...

Natural products have important pharmacological activities. This study sought to investigate the activity of the compound betulinic acid (BA) against different strains of bacteria and fungi. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined and then the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC). Aft...

Chagas disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, occurs most commonly in Latin America. As the treatment is highly toxic and ineffective in the chronic phase of the disease, alternative treatments are needed. Through quantitative structure-activity relationship modeling (QSAR) analysis using ligand-based and structure-based virtual screeni...

Introduction: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most studied progressive eurodegenerative disorder, affecting 40-50 million of the global population. This progressive neurodegenerative disease is marked by gradual and irreversible declines in cognitive functions. The unavailability of therapeutic drug candidates restricting/reversing the progression...

The citral is a monoterpene composed of two isomers: neral and geranial. These molecules have several pharmacological activities, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antifungal. Therefore, this work analyzed the physicochemical differences of the citral isomers and a case study of their antifungal activity.

Introduction: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's are neurodegenerative disorders that affect a great number of people around the world, seriously compromising the quality of life of individuals, due to motor and cognitive damage. In these diseases, pharmacological treatment is used only to alleviate symptoms. This emphasizes the need to discover alternat...

SARS‐CoV‐2 main protease (Mpro) plays an essential role in proteolysis cleavage that promotes coronavirus replication. Thus, attenuating the activity of this enzyme represents a strategy to develop antiviral agents. We report inhibitory effects against Mpro of 40 synthetic chalcones, and cytotoxicity activities, hemolysis, and in silico interaction...

The leishmaniasis is a neglected disease caused by a group of protozoan parasites from the genus Leishmania whose treatment is limited, obsolete, toxic, and ineffective in certain cases. These characteristics motivate researchers worldwide to plan new therapeutic alternatives for the treatment of leishmaniasis, where the use of cheminformatics tool...

Sesquiterpene lactone (SL) subtypes including hirsutinolide and cadinanolide have a controversial genesis. Metabolites of these classes are either described as natural products or as artifacts produced via the influence of solvents, chromatographic mobile phases, and adsorbents used in phytochemical studies. Based on this divergence, and to better...

Background Neurological disorders are composed of several diseases that affect the central and peripheral nervous system; among these are neurodegenerative diseases, which lead to neuronal death. Many of these diseases have treatment for the disease and symptoms, leading patients to use several drugs that cause side effects. Introduction The searc...

The World Health Organization classifies Leishmania as one of the 17 “neglected diseases” that burden tropical and sub-tropical climate regions with over half a million diagnosed cases each year. Despite this, currently available anti-leishmania drugs have high toxicity and the potential to be made obsolete by parasite drug resistance. We chose to...

Objectives Considering that γ-terpinene (γ-TPN) is a monoterpene found in Cannabis oil, with high lipophilicity and limited pharmacokinetics, our objective was to evaluate whether its complexation in β-cyclodextrin (γ-TPN/β-CD) could improve its physicochemical properties and action on cancer pain, as well as verify the mechanisms of action involve...

ENT-ABIETANE DITERPENES FROM Euphorbia phosphorea (EUPHORBIACEAE). Phytochemical study of the roots of Euphorbia phosphorea Mart. (Euphorbiaceae) was carried out through chromatographic techniques, resulting in the isolation of a new ent-abietane diterpene named 11β,12β-dihydroxy-ent-abieta-8(14),13(15)-dien-16,12α-olide (1), and of nine known ent-...

Abstract Acute lung injury is an inflammation that triggers acute respiratory distress syndrome with perialveolar neutrophil infiltration, alveolar-capillary barrier damage, and lung edema. Activation of the toll-like receptor 4 complex (TLR4/MD2) and its downstream signaling pathways are responsible for the cytokine storm and cause alveolar damage...

Plant essential oils (EOs) are important for discovering new bioactive substances, such as environmentally safe insecticides. However, the high structural diversity of EOs compounds and their elusive biochemical mechanisms make a gap in knowledge of their major targets and action mechanisms. Here we present a predictive cheminformatics methodology...

Eriocaulaceae is a pantropical family whose main center of biodiversity is in Brazil. In general, the family has about 1200 species, in which phytochemical and biological studies have shown a variety of structures and activities. The aim of this research is to compile the compounds isolated in the Eriocaulaceae family and carry out a computational...

Nordine was reported to be an unusual humulenetype macrocyclic sesquiterpenoid that contains an ether-bridged bicyclic ring between C-10 and C-6 with a hydroxy group at position 2. Here, we report the structure revision of nordine based on incongruities found for carbon chemical shifts in the originally proposed structure, in addition to formation...

Background Epilepsy is a neurological disease affected by an imbalance of inhibitory and excitatory signaling in the brain. Introduction In this disease, the targets are active in pathophysiology and thus can be used as a focus for pharmacological treatment. Methods Several studies demonstrated the antiepileptic effect of drugs acting on the foll...

Plastoquinone is a key electron carrier in photosynthesis and an essential cofactor for the biosynthesis of carotenoids. p-Hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD) is a vital enzymatic step in plastoquinone biosynthesis that is the target of triketone herbicides, such as those derived from the pharmacophore backbone of the natural product leptosper...

Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by protozoa of the genus Leishmania. Current drug treatments for leishmaniasis are outdated and questionable due to variability in their effectiveness between different Leishmania species. In this perspective, we combined two predictive ligand-based virtual screening models to select potentially...

Herein, the isolation of secondary metabolites from the aerial parts of Justicia aequilabris guided by HPLC-MSn and molecular networking analyses is reported. Twenty-two known compounds were dereplicated. Three new lignans (aequilabrines A-C (1-3)) and three known compounds (lariciresinol-4'-O-β-glucose (4), roseoside (5), and allantoin (6)) were o...

i>Trypanosoma Leishmania Candida albicans Salmonella enterica Escherichia coli Here we report the development of MolPredictX, an innovate and freely accessible web interface for biological activity predictions of query molecules. MolPredictX utilizes in‐house QSAR models to provide 27 qualitative predictions (active or inactive), and quantitative p...

Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan that infects up to a third of the world’s population. This parasite can cause serious problems, especially if a woman is infected during pregnancy, when toxoplasmosis can cause miscarriage, or serious complications to the baby, or in an immunocompromised person, when the infection can possibly affect the patient’s e...

CALL PAPERS: JUST REVIEW, NO CHARGE, H-INDEX OF THE CORRESPONDENCE AUTHOR (MINIMUM)=15.....TENTATIVE TITLE SOON TO luciana.scotti@gmail.com

Plants of Hyptidinae subtribe (Lamiaceae - family), as Mesosphaerum sidifolium, are a source of bioactive molecules. In the search for new drug candidates, we perform chemical characterization of diterpenes isolated from the aerial parts of M. sidifolium was carried out with uni- and bidimensional NMR spectral data, and evaluate in silico through t...

Chagas disease, a neglected tropical disease, is endemic in 21 Latin American countries and particularly prevalent in Brazil. Chagas disease has drawn more attention in recent years due to its expansion into non-endemic areas. The aim of this work was to computationally identify and experimentally validate the natural products from an Annonaceae fa...

INTRODUCTION The drugs currently available for treatment of anxiety and depression act through modulation of the neu-rotransmission systems involved in the neurobiology of the disorder, yet they often present side effects, which can impair patient adherence to treatment. METHOD This, has driven the search for new molecules with anxiolytic and anti...

Proteins are essential and versatile polymers consisting of sequenced amino acids that often possess an organized three-dimensional arrangement, (a result of their monomeric composition), which determines their biological role in cellular function. Proteins are involved in enzymatic catalysis; they participate in genetic information decoding and tr...

Although chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is one of the main medical complaints of cancer patients, there are currently no specific drugs for the effective treatment. In this respect, α-terpineol (TP) seems to be a potential candidate for this purpose, since it has several pharmacological properties that can be improved by nanosytems. The...

Essential oils (EOs) are a mixture of chemical compounds with a long history of use in food, cosmetics, perfumes, agricultural and pharmaceuticals industries. The main object of this study was to find chemical patterns between 45 EOs and antiprotozoal activity (antiplasmodial, antileishmanial and antitrypanosomal), using different machine learning...

Aims: This study evaluated the antifungal, antibiofilm and molecular docking of 2-chloro-N-phenylacetamide against clinical isolates of Candida tropicalis and Candida parapsilosis. Methods and results: Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the test drugs was determined by microdilution. A1Cl obtained MIC values ranging from 16 and 256 μg/ml....

Acute lung injury is characterized by alveolar-capillary barrier rupture, neutrophil-mediated airway inflammation, and tissue hypoxia. Since no effective pharmacotherapy is currently available, alternatives to improve its condition are mandatory. Recent studies demonstrated that curine, a bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloid from Chondrodendron platyphyl...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) is a virus whose genetic material is positive single-stranded RNA, being responsible for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an infection that compromises the lungs and consequently the respiratory capacity of the infected individual, according to the WHO in November 2021, 249,743,428 ca...

Schistosomiasis is a chronic parasitic disease caused by trematodes of the genus Schistosoma; it is commonly caused by Schistosoma mansoni, which is transmitted by Bioamphalaria snails. Studies show that more than 200 million people are infected and that more than 90% of them live in Africa. Treatment with praziquantel has the best cost–benefit res...

Background Chronic orofacial pain is a serious public health problem with a prevalence of 7-11% in the population. This disorder has different etiologies and characteristics that make pharmacological treatment difficult. Natural products have been shown to be a promising source of treatments for the management of chronic pain, as an example the ter...