Cáceres-Vélez, PR, Ali, A, Fournier-Level, A et al. (2 more authors) (2022) Phytochemical and Safety Evaluations of Finger Lime, Mountain Pepper, and Tamarind in Zebrafish Embryos. Antioxidants, 11 (7). 1280. p. 1280. ISSN 2076-3921
Abstract
Plants play a pivotal role in drug discovery, constituting 50% of modern pharmacopeia. Many human diseases, including age-related degenerative diseases, converge onto common cellular oxidative stress pathways. This provides an opportunity to develop broad treatments to treat a wide range of diseases in the ageing population. Here, we characterize and assess the toxicological effects of finger lime (Citrus australasica), mountain pepper (Tasmannia lanceolata), and small-leaved tamarind (Diploglottis australis) extracts. The characterization demonstrates that these Australian native plants have antioxidant potential and, importantly, they have high concentrations of distinct combinations of different antioxidant classes. Using zebrafish larvae as a high-throughput pre-clinical in vivo toxicology screening model, our experiment effectively discriminates which of these extracts (and at what exposure levels) are suitable for development towards future therapies. The LC50-96h for finger lime and tamarind were >480 mg/L, and 1.70 mg/L for mountain pepper. Critically, this work shows that adverse effects are not correlated to the properties of these antioxidants, thus highlighting the need for combining characterization and in vivo screening to identify the most promising plant extracts for further development. Thus, we present a high-throughput pre-clinical screening that robustly tests natural plant products to utilize the diversity of antioxidant compounds for drug development.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | zebrafish; plant toxicity screening; phytochemical characterization; antioxidant capacity; native Australian plants; finger lime; mountain pepper; tamarind |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Aug 2022 13:18 |
Last Modified: | 08 Aug 2022 13:18 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/antiox11071280 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:189741 |