Turraea fischeri is an East African traditional herb, which is widely used in traditional medicine. In this study, we profiled the secondary metabolites in the methanol extract of T. fischeri bark using HPLC-PDA-ESI-MS/MS, and 20 compounds were tentatively identified. Several isomers of the flavonolignan cinchonain-I and bis-dihydroxyphenylpropanoid-substituted catechin hexosides dominated the extract. Robust in vitro and in vivo antioxidant properties were observed in 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging assay (DPPH) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay, and in the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans. Additionally, the extract exhibited promising hepatoprotective activities in D-galactosamine (D-GaIN) treated rats. A significant reduction in the elevated levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), total bilirubin, gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT), and malondialdehyde (MDA) and increase of glutathione (GSH) was observed in rats treated with the bark extract in addition to D-galactosamine when compared with rats treated with D-galactosamine alone. In conclusion, T. fischeri is apromising candidate for health-promoting and for pharmaceutical applications.

Tanacetum sinaicum (Asteraceae) is a rare herb growing wild in Southern Sinai mountains in Egypt. The aim of this work was to develop a comparative study between the chemical compositions of the wild plant and the micropropagated one, using HPLC− ESI− MS/MS technique. HPLC- ESI-MS/MS analysis resulted in the identification of 56 compounds including flavonoids, organic acids and their glycosides. Totally, 52 compounds were tentatively identified from the methanolic extracts of wild plant, 10 of them could also be detected in the methanolic extract of the micropropagated plant, in addition to 4 compounds that were detected only in the micropropagated plant. Methanolic extracts of the wild and micropropagated plants showed moderate cytotoxic activity against Hep-G2, HCT-116 and A-549 cell lines using MTT cell viability assay. The antioxidant activity using the DPPH free radical assay was investigated and the results indicated that the wild plant methanolic extract has better antioxidant activity compared to the in vitro plant extract. In addition, the insecticidal activity was measured using the immersion method and the methanolic extract of the micropropagated plant showed a higher mortality percentage than wild plant extract on culex pipiens. Also, results indicate that wild plant extract has mild antimicrobial activity against Gram positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis and showed no activity on both fungi and Gram negative bacteria. while in vitro plant extract showed some activity against Gram positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and the Gram negative bacteria Escherichia coli.

The authors wish to emphasize that the experiments were simultaneously conducted with several plant species, and identical control groups were utilized for both articles (Phytomedicine (2017), doi:10