Antioxidant Activity of Natural Products: 2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

Phytochemicals are a group of substances, including polyphenols, saponins, terpenes, phytosterols, carotenoids, etc., which are present in and/or derived from plants that confer health benefits (e.g., antioxidant, anti-inflammation, anti-cancer). Natural products are an important source of phytochemicals that have received a great deal of attention in the last few decades because of the increasingly mindful attitudes of consumers regarding their diet and health. Thus, there is growing interest in the activity and composition analysis of phytochemicals in natural products, especially in recognition of novel antioxidants with specific biological activities.

Bioassay-guided purification is a well-established approach which is widely used for the discovery of novel antioxidants from natural products; it involves subjecting mixtures of phytochemicals to iterative steps of fractionation and biological testing, with the underlying strategy aimed at reducing the composition complexity of natural products until a group of or a single compound with a specific biological activity is secured. However, bioassay-guided purification has also been criticized for some real and perceived weaknesses (the process is time-consuming and labor intensive, the trace phytonutrients are easily lost, etc.). With the rapid development of new technologies and new materials in the field of analytical chemistry, the analysis of phytochemicals in complex natural products can be achieved in more comprehensive, automatic, rapid, accurate, and trace manners. However, how to rapidly recognize the antioxidants without purification is still a key problem. Moreover, how to reliably assess the biological activities of natural antioxidants is also an important challenge.

Some new techniques have recently been proposed for the rapid recognition of novel antioxidants with specific biological activities in natural products without purification; these include ligand fishing, microfluids, disease-model-based metabolomics (cell or animal), etc. Furthermore, the biological activities of antioxidants can be evaluated in a more comprehensive, rapid, and accurate manner, and the antioxidant mechanisms can also be clearly illustrated. This Special Issue aims to highlight recent advances in the development of new methods for the rapid recognition of natural antioxidants with specific biological activities, finding new antioxidant resources from natural products, discovering novel antioxidants, and understanding their antioxidant activities and mechanisms.

Dr. Zhiqiang Wang
Dr. Grażyna Zgórka
Guest Editors

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• plant and dietary antioxidants
• preparative-scale isolation
• analytical methods
• molecular mechanisms
• antibiodegenerative potential in vitro and in vivo

• Antioxidant Activity of Natural Products in Molecules (16 articles)