Ricerc@Sapienza

An Italian certified Neem seed oil was characterized through the color analysis, the HPLC phenolic fingerprint and the preliminary evaluation of the cytotoxicity profile against the human macrophage (THP-1) cell line. Moreover, a wide screening of its enzyme inhibitory profile, antimicrobial activity towards Helicobacter pylori, several Candida spp. and Malassezia furfur strains and antiprotozoal activity against Plasmodium falciparum, Leishmania infantum and Leishmania tropica were performed.

A method using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with a photodiode array detector was proposed for the rapid characterization of different phenolic constituents from the extracts of Atriplex mollis aerial parts. Atriplex species are known for their multiple biological activities, but no information is available in the literature about A. mollis. With the aim to firstly characterize the main secondary metabolites of this plant, so as to orient better the biological evaluation, we applied three different extraction procedures and compared the chromatographic results.

This study was performed to evaluate the metabolite recovery from different extraction
methods applied to Thymus algeriensis aerial parts. A high-performance liquid chromatographic
method using photodiode array detector with gradient elution has been developed and validated
for the simultaneous estimation of different phenolic compounds in the extracts and in their
corresponding purified fractions. The experimental results show that microwave-assisted aqueous
extraction for 15 min at 100 C gave the most phenolics-enriched extract, reducing extraction