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Background: Currently there is a high prevalence of humor disorders such as anxiety and depression throughout the world, especially concerning advanced age patients. Aniba riparia (Nees) Mez. (Lauraceae), popular known as "louro", can be found from the Amazon through Guianas until the Andes. Previous studies have already reported the isolation of alkamide-type alkaloids such as riparin III (O-methyl-N-2,6-dyhydroxy-benzoyl tyramine) which has demonstrated anxiolytic and antidepressant-like effects in high doses by intraperitoneal administration., Methods: Experimental protocol was conducted in order to analyze the anxiolytic-like effect of riparin III at lower doses by intravenous administration to Wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus) (n = 5). The experimental approach was designed to last 15 days, divided in 3 distinct periods of five days: control, anxiogenic and treatment periods. The anxiolytic-like effect was evaluated by experimental behavior tests such as open field and elevated plus-maze test, combined with urine metabolic footprint analysis. The urine was collected daily and analyzed by 1 H NMR. Generated data were statistically treated by Principal Component Analysis in order to detect patterns among the distinct periods evaluated as well as biomarkers responsible for its distinction., Results: It was observed on treatment group that cortisol, biomarker related to physiological stress was reduced, indicating anxiolytic-like effect of riparin III, probably through activation of 5-HT 2A receptors, which was corroborated by behavioral tests., Conclusion: 1 H NMR urine metabolic footprint combined with multivariate data analysis have demonstrated to be an important diagnostic tool to prove the anxiolytic-like effect of riparin III in a more efficient and pragmatic way.

The increase of chemical pollutants detected in different aquatic environments over the past few years has been in the focus of several studies related to their occurrence, transport, fate, and hazards, or risks to human and environmental health. In Brazil, recent studies have been conducted on the occurrence of a series of organic micropollutants (OMPs) in aquatic environments. Nevertheless, the toxicological information and environmental behavior for most of these pollutants are still difficult to evaluate. We obtained consensus models using a combination of VolSurf and Dragon descriptors and Random Forest approach to predict the toxicity against Daphnia magna and Pimephales promelas for compounds identified in different sources of water in Brazil. The models showed satisfactory performance when compared with other approaches, such as Toxicity Estimation Software Tool (T.E.S.T.), etc. Both models can be used as complementary tools to aid in the prediction of organic compounds against both organisms., (© 2019 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

The ethanolic extract of the leaves of Cissampelos sympodialis showed great pharmacological potential, with inflammatory and immunomodulatory activities, however, it showed some toxicological effects. Therefore, this study aims to verify the toxicological potential of alkaloids of the genus Cissampelos through in silico methodologies, to develop a method in LC-MS/MS verifying the presence of alkaloids in the infusion and to evaluate the toxicity of the infusion of the leaves of C. sympodialis when inhaled by Swiss mice. Results in silico showed that alkaloid 93 presented high toxicological potential along with the products of its metabolism. LC-MS/MS results showed that the infusion of the leaves of this plant contained the alkaloids warifteine and methylwarifteine. Finally, the in vivo toxicological analysis of the C. sympodialis infusion showed results, both in biochemistry, organ weights and histological analysis, that the infusion of C. sympodialis leaves presents a low toxicity.

Sorption coefficients (K(oc)) are useful in the prediction of whether a pesticide will remain dissolved in solution or will become adsorbed onto soil particles after its application. Measuring this process experimentally is difficult, expensive and time-consuming. Hence, much effort has been directed toward estimating K(oc) through statistical modelling. In this study, we investigated the physicochemical properties of pesticides employed by a local sugarcane company, in the northern coastal plain of Paraíba state in Brazil, by using several molecular descriptors, among them, GRid INdependent Descriptors (GRIND). Quantitative assessment of the structure-property relationship (QSPR) model indicated that size, shape, octanol-water coefficient, solubility and the balance between hydrophilic and lipophilic regions, are all relevant to K(oc) values., (2014 FRAME.)