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Waste and By-Products from Agricultural Production for Innovative Health Applications - Second Edition Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Botanical Garden “Giardino dei Semplici” of G. d’Annunzio University

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Natural Products Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2022) | Viewed by 3617

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor

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Guest Editor
Department of Pharmacy, University “G.d’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara, 66100 Chieti, Italy
Interests: botanical and phytochemical characterization of medicinal plants and agricultural by-products
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit original articles to this Special Issue entitled “Waste and By-Products from Agricultural Production for Innovative Health Applications—Second Edition Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Botanical Garden “Giardino dei Semplici” of G. d’Annunzio University”.

 This Special Issue (SI) aims to highlight all aspects related to the preparation, the extraction, phytochemical investigations, and pharmacotoxicological investigations of plant materials derived from high-quality waste byproducts of medicinal, aromatic, and food plants. The aim of the present SI is focused on the new worldwide research interest in the valorization of productive chains that are improvable in terms of circular economy and sustainability. The SI will consider studies that are related to this aspect from multiple points of view, namely, the optimization of extraction, with particular regard to biocompatible solvents and processes, comparative studies of extraction techniques, and their pharmacotoxicological impacts on biological systems and human and animal health.

 Manuscripts describing at least one of the following items are welcome:

  • The description of crude extracts, although the fingerprint analysis of secondary metabolites is an essential requirement; qualitative analyses will be accepted only if involving untargeted metabolomic analysis, as evidenced by HPLC-MS data; the analysis of selected secondary metabolites should be quantitative and carried out with validated chromatographic and/or spectroscopic methods.
  • Pharmacotoxicological investigations performed at multiple levels (in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo studies): animal and clinical trials are welcome, although authorization for experimental procedures and/or the blank informed consent forms should be provided during submission; innovative approaches based on component–target analysis and alternative pharmatoxicological methods are also encouraged.
  • Studies about isolated compounds from plant materials in comparison with the crude extracts.

The potential investigations and applications should not be limited to the sole chemical characterization of plant-derived extracts, and manuscripts suggesting new applicative fields for previously characterized extracts are encouraged.

Finally, in the present Special Issue, the Guest Editors would also like to note and celebrate the 20th anniversary of the “Giardino dei Semplici” botanical garden, which is operated by the “G. d’Annunzio” University within the Department of Pharmacy, as the elective place where academic innovation meets the reality of productive chains.

Prof. Dr. Claudio Ferrante
Prof. Dr. Luigi Menghini
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • botanical characterization
  • pharmacological activity
  • ecotoxicological fingerprint
  • phytochemistry
  • analytical methods

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 1302 KiB  
Article
Reuse of Food Waste: The Chemical Composition and Health Properties of Pomelo (Citrus maxima) Cultivar Essential Oils
by Natale Badalamenti, Maurizio Bruno, Rosario Schicchi, Anna Geraci, Mariarosaria Leporini, Rosa Tundis and Monica Rosa Loizzo
Molecules 2022, 27(10), 3273; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27103273 - 19 May 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3023
Abstract
The aim of the present study is to investigate the chemical profile, antioxidant activity, carbohydrate-hydrolysing enzyme inhibition, and hypolipidemic effect of essential oils (EOs) extracted from Sicilian Citrus maxima (pomelo) flavedo. Using gas-chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis (GC-MS) we analysed the Eos of five cultivars [...] Read more.
The aim of the present study is to investigate the chemical profile, antioxidant activity, carbohydrate-hydrolysing enzyme inhibition, and hypolipidemic effect of essential oils (EOs) extracted from Sicilian Citrus maxima (pomelo) flavedo. Using gas-chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis (GC-MS) we analysed the Eos of five cultivars of C. maxima, namely, ‘Chadock’, ‘Maxima’, ‘Pyriformis’, ‘Terracciani’, and ‘Todarii’, and their blends. The antioxidant activity was performed by using a multi-target approach using 2,2′-Azino-Bis-3-Ethylbenzothiazoline-6-Sulfonic acid (ABTS), 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), ferric reducing ability power (FRAP), and β-carotene bleaching tests. The α-amylase, α-glucosidase, and lipase-inhibitory activities were also assessed. GC-MS analyses revealed D-limonene as the main monoterpene hydrocarbon in all cultivars, albeit with different percentages in the range of 21.72–71.13%. A good content of oxygenated monoterpenes was detected for all cultivars, especially for ‘Todarii’. The analysis of the principal components (PCA), and related clusters (HCA), was performed to find chemo-diversity among the analysed samples. EOs from ‘Chadock’ and ‘Maxima’ were statistically similar to each other, and they differed from P3 in the smaller amount of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons, while the oils from ‘Terracciani’ and ‘Todarii’ were found to be chemically and statistically different. ‘Chadock’ EO was the most active to scavenge radicals (IC50 values of 22.24 and 27.23 µg/mL in ABTS and DPPH tests, respectively). ‘Terracciani’ EO was the most active against both lipase and α-amylase, whereas the blends obtained by the combination (1:1 v/v) of C. maxima ‘Maxima’ + ‘Todarii’ were the most active against α-glucosidase. Generally, the blends did not exert a unique behaviour in potentiating or reducing the bioactivity of the pomelo EOs. Full article
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