Classification of Unifloral Honeys from SARDINIA (Italy) by ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy and Random Forest

Nowadays, the mislabeling of honey floral origin is a very common fraudulent practice. The scientific community is intensifying its efforts to provide the bodies responsible for controlling the authenticity of honey with fast and reliable analytical protocols. In this study, the classification of various monofloral honeys from Sardinia, Italy, was attempted by means of ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and random forest. Four different floral origins were considered: strawberry-tree (Arbutus Unedo L.), asphodel (Asphodelus microcarpus), thistle (Galactites tormentosa), and eucalyptus (Eucalyptus calmadulensis). Training a random forest on the infrared spectra allowed achieving an average accuracy of 87% in a cross-validation setting. The identification of the significant wavenumbers revealed the important role played by the region 1540–1175 cm−1 and, to a lesser extent, the region 1700–1600 cm−1. The contribution of the phenolic fraction was identified as the main responsible for this observation.

Toxicité aiguë, cytotoxicité et effet antiradicalaire de l’extrait méthanolique des feuilles de l’asphodèle, Asphodelus microcarpus

Asphodelus microcarpus(A.m.) est une plante largement utilisée en médecine traditionnelle marocaine pour ses propriétés médicinales qui restent variées et générales. Une extraction des principes actifs contenus dans les feuilles d’A.m. a été réalisée par macération à froid au méthanol. L’extrait obtenu a fait l’objet d’une étude in vitro de cytotoxicité qui a révélé un effet cytotoxique sur un modèle de cellules myéloïdes d’origine humaine (IC50 = 7,81 μg/ml). Par ailleurs, l’évaluation de l’extrait quant à son activité antioxydante par la méthode du réactif DPPH s’est révélée positive (IC50 = 310 μg/ml), et l’étude de sa toxicité aiguë in vivo sur un modèle animal (souris Swiss) lui confère une totale innocuité (DL50 > 5 000 mg/kg). Ces études ont été complétées par un criblage phytochimique afin de mettre en évidence les familles de métabolites secondaires majoritaires identifiées ici comme des anthracénosides, tannins et phénols ; les alcaloïdes sont peu présents. Ainsi, la faible toxicité in vivo et l’éventuel pouvoir antiprolifératif de l’extrait fixe d’A.m. in vitro justifieraient son évaluation future sur différents modèles tumoraux.

Comparison of the Total Phenol, Flavonoid Contents and Antioxidant Activity of Methanolic Roots Extracts of Asphodelus microcarpus and Asphodeline lutea Growing in Syria

Medicinal plants are a source for a wide variety of natural antioxidants. In the study reported here, we have conducted a comparative study between two medicinal plants roots having the same geographic origin and growing in the same natural conditions. The present study is designed to evaluate the radical scavenging activity, total phenol content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) of the MeOH roots extracts of Asphodelus microcarpus and Asphodeline lutea. The antioxidant activity of the extracts was examined by DPPH method. Total phenol and total flavonoid quantities of the samples were determined spectrophotometrically using Folin-Ciocalteu and AlCl3 reagents respectively. The roots in both plants exhibited the free radical scavenging property (IC50= 0.30, 0.54 mg/ml) for A. microcarpus and A. lutea, respectively compared to that of the positive control BHT (IC50= 0.017 mg/ml). As assumed, the amount of total phenolics was (17.90, 13.02 mg GAE/ g dry weight for A. microcarpus and A. lutea root extracts, respectively. Roots extract of Asphodelus microcarpus were the richest in total phenolic compounds and also it has been found to be rich in flavonoids (14.60 mg rutinoside/g dry weight). To our knowledge, this is the first report on the antioxidant activity of A. microcarpus and A. lutea root from Syrian origin and our findings suggest the possibility of using the roots as a novel source of natural antioxidant agent for the food and pharmaceutical industries

influence of altitude and slope on the density of Asphodelus microcarpus Salzm & Viv. in the Mount of Tessala (Western Algeria)

The change in the structure of species communities along environmental gradients is a privileged field of ecology as it allows exploring a continuous progression of situations often in a small area, in this context, we are interested in studying the impact of altitude and slope on the density and the recovery rate of Asphodelus microcarpus population in mountainous ecosystem. Asphodelus microcarpus is an ecological model, which allows us to have an idea about the degree of degradation in mountainous ecosystem, the density increases with advanced degradation stage. Analysis of variance revealed a highly significant difference (P = 0.001) between the 20 selected stations. The principal component analysis revealed that the density is important in low altitudes around 750 m where the slopes are average, this correlation is the result of human pressures that weaken the mountain of Tessala.International Journal of Environment Vol.5(3) 2016, pp.43-56