Genus Angelica is one of the widely distributed and well-known genera of family Umbelliferae. It is utilized mainly by Chinese and Korean populations especially in their folk medicine. Angelica comprises a lot of medicinally important phytoconstituents such as coumarins, furanocoumarins, flavonoids, essential oils, verbascosides, polysaccharides, etc. Members of this genus play important roles, namely antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-diabetic, skin-whitening, cytotoxic, hepatoprotective, and many others. This review draws attention to many species of genus Angelica with much focus on A. dahurica being one of the highly medicinally used species within this genus.

Background: Schotia brachypetalaSond. (Fabaceae) is an endemic tree of Southern Africa whose phytochemistry and pharmacology were slightly studied. The present work aimed at profiling the major phenolics compounds present in the hydro-alcohol extract fromS. brachypetalaleaves (SBE) using LC/HRESI/MS/MS and NMR and prove their antioxidant capabilities using novel methods.Methods: In vitroassays; DPPH, TEAC persulfate decolorizing kinetic and FRAP assays, andin vivoassays:Caenorhabditis elegansstrains maintenance, Intracellular ROS inC. elegans, Survival assay, GFP expression and Subcellular DAF-16 localization were employed to evaluate the antioxidant activity.Results: More than forty polyphenols, including flavonoid glycosides, galloylated flavonoid glycosides, isoflavones, dihydrochalcones, procyanidins, anthocyanins, hydroxy benzoic acid derivatives, hydrolysable tannins, and traces of methylated and acetylated flavonoid derivatives were identified. Three compounds were isolated and identified from the genusSchotiafor the first time, namely gallic acid, myricetin-3-O-α-L-¹C₄-rhamnoside and quercetin-3-O-L-¹C₄-rhamnoside. The total phenolics content of SBE was (376 mg CAE/g), followed by flavonoids (67.87 QE/g).In vitroantioxidant activity of SBE was evidenced by DPPH radical scavenging activity (IC₅₀of 9 µg/mL), FRAP ferric reducing activity (5,000 mol Fe²⁺E/mg) and ABTS peroxide inhibiting activity (1,054 mM Trolox E/mg). The tested extract was able to protect the worms against juglone induced oxidative stress, an increased survival rate (up to 41%) was recorded, when compared with the control group (11%) and attenuate the reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation in dose-dependent and reached up to 72% for the highest tested concentration. SBE was also able to attenuate the levels of heat shock protein (HSP) expression in dose-dependent up to 60% in the 150 µg SBE/mL group. In DAF-16 Subcellular localization SBE treated worms showed nuclear localization pattern up to 78%, while it was only 5% in the untreated control group.Discussion: A pronounced antioxidant activityin vivo, which can be attributed to its ability to promote the nuclear translocation of DAF-16/FOXO, the main transcription factor regulating the expression of stress response genes. The remarkable antioxidant activityin vitroandin vivocorrelates to SBE rich phenolic profile.

This study aimed to analyze the essential oils of the aerial parts (A) and flowers (F) of Rosa banksiae var. banksiae Ait. (RBW), Rosa polyantha Thunb. “orange fairy” (RPO) and Rosa polyantha Thunb. “white fairy” (RPW), family Rosaceae, and perform multivariate data analyses and antimicrobial activity evaluations. The essential oil analyses were performed by GC/FID and GC/MS. Principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), and clustered heat map were used for the multivariate analyses. The antimicrobial activity was evaluated by the well-diffusion method against four bacteria and four fungi. Two hundred fifty-three compounds were identified from the six oil samples. The major components in RBW-A, RPO-A, and RPW-A were n-undecane (14.40, 19.36, and 9.21%) n-dodecane (14.54, 22.13, and 8.39%), and yomogi alcohol (8.41, 10.53, and 6.28%), respectively, whereas RBW-F, RPO-F and RPW-F contained n-heptadecane (16.70%), n-undecane (7.98%), and β-phellandrene (22.78%), respectively. The tested essential oils showed moderate antifungal activity against Aspergillus fumigatus compared to amphotericin B. PCA and HCA revealed five main clusters. The six samples carried close chemical profiles and can be regarded as fruitful sources of safe antifungal agents.

Citrus fruit essential oil is considered one of the widely studied essential oils while its leaves attract less attention although being rich in nearly the same composition as the peel and flowers. The leaves of bitter orange or sour orange (Citrus aurantium L.) were extracted using three different techniques namely; hydrodistillation (HD), steam distillation (SD), and microwave-assisted distillation (MV) to compare their chemical composition. The three essential oil samples were analyzed through GC/FID and GC/MS analyses. The samples were tested in vitro using different antioxidant techniques (DPPH, ABTS, CUPRAC, FRAP, PBD, and MCA), neuroprotective enzyme inhibitory activities (acetylcholine and butyl choline enzymes), and antidiabetic activities (α-amylase and α-glucosidase). The results showed that thirty-five volatile ingredients were detected and quantified. Monoterpenes represented the most abundant class in the three essential oils followed by sesquiterpenes. C. aurantium essential oil carried potential antioxidant activity where SD exhibited the highest antioxidant activity, with values arranged in the following order: FRAP (200.43 mg TE/g), CUPRAC (138.69 mg TE/g), ABTS (129.49 mg TE/g), and DPPH (51.67 mg TE/g). SD essential oil also presented the most potent α-amylase (0.32) inhibition while the MV essential oil showed the highest α-glucosidase inhibition (2.73 mmol ACAE/g), followed by HD (2.53 mmol ACAE/g), and SD (2.46 mmol ACAE/g). The SD essential oil exhibited the highest BChE and AChE inhibitory activities (3.73 and 2.06 mg GALAE/g), respectively). Thus, bitter orange essential oil can act as a potential source of potent antioxidant, antidiabetic, and neuroprotective activities for future drug leads.

Aging or senescence is part of human life development with many effects on the physical, mental, and physiological aspects which may lead to age-related deterioration in many organs. Genus Curcuma family Zingieraceae represents one of the well-studied and medically important genera with more than eighty species. The genus is reported to contain different classes of biologically active compounds that are mainly presented in diphenylheptanoids, diphenylpentanoids, diphenylalkanoids, phenylpropene derivatives, alkaloids, flavonoids, chromones, terpenoids, phenolic acids and volatile constituents. Rhizomes and roots of such species are rich with main phytoconstituentsviz.curcumin, demethoxycurcumin and bis-demethoxycurcumin. A wide variety of biological activities were demonstrated for different extracts and essential oils of genusCurcumamembers including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, cytotoxic and neuroprotective. Thus, making them as an excellent safe source for nutraceutical products and as a continuous promising area of research on lead compounds that may help in the slowing down of the aging process especially the neurologic and mental deterioration that are usually experienced upon aging. In this review different species of the genusCurcumawere summarized with their phytochemical and biological activities highlighting their role as antiaging agents. The data were collected from different search enginesviz.Pubmed®, Google Scholar®, Scopus® and Web of Science® limiting the search to the period between 2003 up till now.