Ricerc@Sapienza

The National Institute on Drug Abuse in the U.S. has observed an increase in the deaths from synthetic opioids (mainly fentanyl) in recent years. Several epidemics related to the illicit abuse of fentanyl and its analogs have been reported in the Country: one of those happened in Cook County in 2005-2007 (350 individuals). Another outbreak of fentanyl death occurred in 2015-2017 in the same area.

Caralluma fimbriata Wall. is currently used as a "natural slimming" food supplement, likely due to its content in pregnane glycosides. In the present study, a commercially available Caralluma fimbriata extract (Slimaluma®; CFE, 100 mg/kg) has been evaluated for its ability to affect the ingestive behaviour in female rats, also with reference to the modulation of the brain neuropeptides NPY and ORX.The interference of CFE with ?-amylase and lipase enzymes has been investigated in vitro, as possible peripheral mechanism of action.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is considered to be the most common chronic liver disease. The discovery of natural product-based NAFLD modulators requires a more comprehensive study of their modes of action (MoAs). In this study we analysed available in the literature data for 26 naturally-derived compounds associated with experimental evidence for NAFLD alleviation and outlined potential biomolecular targets and a network of pharmacological MoAs for 12 compounds with the highest number of experimentally supported MoA key events, modulated by them.

Various filamentous fungi can produce secondary metabolites, whose biochemical significance in fungal growth and development has not always been fully clarified; however, some of these metabolites can cause deleterious effects on other organisms and are classified as mycotoxins [...].

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has recently proposed changes to strengthen the transparency of its pivotal regulatory science policy and procedures. In this context, the US EPA aims to enhance the transparency of dose-response data and models, proposing to consider for the first time non-linear biphasic dose-response models.