With a widespread distribution throughout the Northern Hemisphere and 11 genera, Pinaceae is the largest family of Gymnosperms in the world. Essential oils are an important chemotaxonomic marker for the species of this family, although the degree of chemical and biological investigation has not been the same for all genera. Essential oils from Abies and Cedrus (from the abietoid clade) or Pinus and Picea (from the pinoid clade) have been more extensively investigated with respect to their chemical composition and biological or pharmacological properties, including their antioxidant effects. Instead, essential oils from the other genera of the family have been less explored in this respect or even have not been investigated at all. This is a narrative review looking into the knowledge acquired up to date, the variability and limitations of the current methods used to estimate antioxidant effects, and multiple comparisons between EOs obtained from different genera, species, and plant parts, as well as potential applications and future directions of research and utilization of essential oils derived from Pinaceae species.

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) remains one of the challenges in the safety profile of both authorized and candidate drugs, and predicting hepatotoxicity from the chemical structure of a substance remains a task worth pursuing. Such an approach is coherent with the current tendency for replacing non-clinical tests with in vitro or in silico alternatives. In 2016, a group of researchers from the FDA published an improved annotated list of drugs with respect to their DILI risk, constituting “the largest reference drug list ranked by the risk for developing drug-induced liver injury in humans” (DILIrank). This paper is one of the few attempting to predict liver toxicity using the DILIrank dataset. Molecular descriptors were computed with the Dragon 7.0 software, and a variety of feature selection and machine learning algorithms were implemented in the R computing environment. Nested (double) cross-validation was used to externally validate the models selected. A total of 78 models with reasonable performance were selected and stacked through several approaches, including the building of multiple meta-models. The performance of the stacked models was slightly superior to other models published. The models were applied in a virtual screening exercise on over 100,000 compounds from the ZINC database and about 20% of them were predicted to be non-hepatotoxic.

Abies alba Mill. (Pinaceae), silver fir, is a widespread gymnosperm species in Europe, important for its ecological, economic, social, and cultural significance, as well as for its use for food and bioremediation purposes. The various parts of the plant (leaves, branches, cones, wood, bark) are also of pharmaceutical interest due to their composition of active compounds. In the last three decades, an impressive amount of research has been dedicated to this species. The variability of the chemical composition of essential oils (whether they come from leaves, oleoresin from branches, or other parts of the plant) is impressive, even in the case of specimens collected from the same geographical area. For essential oils prepared from needles or twigs and branches, limonene, β-pinene, α-pinene, camphene, β-phellandrene, and bornyl acetate are the leading compounds, although their wide variations seem to correspond to multiple chemotypes. Both bark and wood are rich in lignans and phenolic compounds. Matairesinol is apparently the dominant lignan in bark, and secoisolariciresinol and lariciresinol are the dominant ones in wood samples. Pharmacological studies with promising results have evaluated the antioxidant effect (mainly due to essential oils), but also the antimicrobial, antitumor, probiotic, antidiabetic, anti-steatosis, and anti-psoriatic activities.

Aspergillus species, especially A. fumigatus, and to a lesser extent others (A. flavus, A. niger, A. terreus), although rarely pathogenic to healthy humans, can be very aggressive to immunocompromised patients (they are opportunistic pathogens). Although survival rates for such infections have improved in recent decades following the introduction of azole derivatives, they remain a clinical challenge. The fact that current antifungals act as fungistatic rather than fungicide, that they have limited safety, and that resistance is becoming increasingly common make the need for new, more effective, and safer therapies to become more acute. Over the last decades, knowledge about the molecular biology of A. fumigatus and other Aspergillus species, and particularly of calcineurin, Hsp90, and their signaling pathway proteins, has progressed remarkably. Although calcineurin has attracted much interest, its adverse effects, particularly its immunosuppressive effects, make it less attractive than it might at first appear. The situation is not very different for Hsp90. Other proteins from their signaling pathways, such as protein kinases phosphorylating the four SPRR serine residues, CrzA, rcnA, pmcA-pmcC (particularly pmcC), rfeF, BAR adapter protein(s), the phkB histidine kinase, sskB MAP kinase kinase, zfpA, htfA, ctfA, SwoH (nucleoside diphosphate kinase), CchA, MidA, FKBP12, the K27 lysine position from Hsp90, PkcA, MpkA, RlmA, brlA, abaA, wetA, other heat shock proteins (Hsp70, Hsp40, Hsp12) currently appear promising and deserve further investigation as potential targets for antifungal drug development.

Ziziphus jujuba Mill. (jujube) is a well-known medicinal plant with pronounced wound healing properties. The present study aimed to establish the chemical composition of the lyophilized ethanolic extract from Romanian Ziziphus jujuba leaves and to evaluate the healing and anti-inflammatory properties of a newly developed lipophilic ointment containing 10% dried jujube leaves extract. The ultra-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Electrospray Ionization Tandem Mass Spectrometry method was used, and 47 compounds were detected, among them the novel epicatechin and caffeic acid. The extract contains significant amounts of rutin (29.836 mg/g), quercetin (15.180 mg/g) and chlorogenic acid (350.96 µg/g). The lipophilic ointment has a slightly tolerable pH, between 5.41–5.42, and proved to be non-toxic in acute dermal irritation tests on New Zealand albino rabbits and after repeated administration on Wistar rats. The ointment also has a healing activity comparable to Cicatrizin (a pharmaceutical marketed product) on Wistar rats and a moderate anti-inflammatory action compared to the control group, but statistically insignificant compared to indomethacin in the rat-induced inflammation test by intraplantar administration of kaolin. The healing and anti-inflammatory properties of the tested ointment are due to phenolic acids and flavonoids content, less because of minor components as apocynin, scopoletin, and isofraxidin.

Geranium spp. are recognized as rich sources of phenolic metabolites, with potential health benefits, yet comparative evaluations remain limited. We assessed four wild-grown Geranium spp. (G. dissectum—G1, G. lucidum—G2, G. pusillum—G3, and G. robertianum—G4), from southwestern Romanian flora, using complementary antioxidant (DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP) and phytochemical (TPC and TFC) assays. Targeted UHPLC/UV with MS confirmation quantified eight phenolic acids. FRAP provided the strongest discrimination between species, and mirrored TPC, with the highest values in G4 sample. ABTS and DPPH supported the same ranking, and TFC varied only modestly, but differences were narrower and not significant between species. Caffeic acid was highest in G1 sample, and chlorogenic acid was selectively elevated in G3 sample. Gallic and protocatechuic acids were highest in G4 sample, both tracking the FRAP/TPC gradient. Syringic acid and vanillic acid were enriched in weaker antioxidant species. Distinctive signatures included high p-coumaric acid in G4 sample and chlorogenic and ferulic acids in G3 sample. Antioxidant potential among Geranium spp. is best explained by TPC, particularly hydroxybenzoic acids, with FRAP emerging as the most sensitive discriminator. These findings provide a comparative benchmark for Geranium spp. phytochemistry and a framework for future pharmacological studies.