María Belén Faraoni

Natural AChE Inhibitors from Plants and their Contribution to Alzheimer's Disease Therapy.

As acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors are an important therapeutic strategy in Alzheimer’s disease, efforts are being made in search of new molecules with anti-AChE activity. The fact that naturally-occurring compounds from plants are considered to be a potential source of new inhibitors has led to the discovery of an important number of secondary metabolites and plant extracts with the ability of inhibiting the enzyme AChE, which, according to the cholinergic hypothesis, increases the levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the brain, thus improving cholinergic functions in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and alleviating the symptoms of this neurological disorder. This review summarizes a total of 128 studies which correspond to the most relevant research work published during 2006-2012 (1st semester) on plant-derived compounds, plant extracts and essential oils found to elicit AChE inhibition.

Triterpenoids with acetylcholinesterase inhibition from Chuquiraga erinacea D. Don. subsp. erinacea (Asteraceae).

A bioactivity-guided approach was taken to identify the acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitory agents in the ethanolic extract of Chuquiraga erinacea D. Don. subsp. erinacea leaves using a bioautographic method. This permitted the isolation of the pentacyclic triterpenes calenduladiol (1), faradiol (2), heliantriol B2 (3), lupeol (4), and a mixture of alpha-and beta-amyrin ( 5A and 5B) as active constituents. Pseudotaraxasterol (6) and taraxasterol (7) were also isolated from this extract and showed no activity at the same analytical conditions. Compound 1 showed the highest AChE inhibitory activity with 31.2 % of inhibition at 0.5 mM. Looking forward to improve the water solubility of the active compounds, the sodium sulfate ester of 1 was prepared by reaction with the (CH3)3N.SO3 complex. The semisynthetic derivative disodium calenduladiol disulfate (8) elicited higher AChE inhibition than 1 with 94.1 % of inhibition at 0.5 mM (IC (50) = 0.190 +/- 0.003 mM). Compounds 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7 are reported here for the first time in C. erinacea. This is the first report of AChE inhibition from calenduladiol (1) as well as from a sulfate derived from a natural product.

Transmetallations between aryltrialkyltins and borane: synthesis of arylboronic acids and organotin hydrides

Abstract Aryltrialkyltin compounds react with borane in THF to give mixtures of trialkyltin hydrides and arylboranes, which on hydrolysis give arylboronic acid in high yields. The arylboronic acids are easily separated and obtained free of organotins.

Preparation, anticholinesterase activity and molecular docking of new lupane derivatives.

A set of twenty one lupane derivatives (2-22) was prepared from the natural triterpenoid calenduladiol (1) by transformations on the hydroxyl groups at C-3 and C-16, and also on the isopropenyl moiety. The derivatives were tested for their inhibitory activity against acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) and some structure-activity relationships were outlined with the aid of enzyme kinetic studies and docking modelization. The most active compound resulted to be 3,16,30-trioxolup-20(29)-ene (22), with an IC50 value of 21.5μM for butyrylcholinesterase, which revealed a selective inhibitor profile towards this enzyme.

Oxidation at C-16 enhances butyrylcholinesterase inhibition in lupane triterpenoids

A set of triterpenoids with different grades of oxidation in the lupane skeleton were prepared and evaluated as cholinesterase inhibitors. Allylic oxidation with selenium oxide and Joness oxidation were employed to obtain mono-, di- and tri-oxolupanes, starting from calenduladiol (1) and lupeol (3). All the derivatives showed a selective inhibition of butyrylcholinesterase over acetylcholinesterase (BChE vs. AChE). A kinetic study proved that compounds 2 and 9, the more potent inhibitors of the series, act as competitive inhibitors. Molecular modeling was used to understand their interaction with BChE, the role of carbonyl at C-16 and the selectivity towards this enzyme over AChE. These results indicate that oxidation at C-16 of the lupane skeleton is a key transformation in order to improve the cholinesterase inhibition of these compounds.

Synthesis of 3,16,30-trioxolup-20(29)-ene, a selective butyrylcholinesterase inhibitor, from a natural triterpene

According to the cholinergic hypothesis, the inhibition of cholinesterase increases the levels of acetylcholine in the brain, thus improving cholinergic functions in Alzheimer´s Disease (AD) patients. Butyrylcholinesterase (BChE), is one of the enzymes involved in the metabolic degradation of acetylcholine, together with acetylcholinesterase (AChE). BChE activity increases as AD progresses, which suggests that BChE may play an important role at the latter stages of AD. Therefore, selective BChE inhibitors attract interest nowadays.Lup-20(29)-ene-3β,16β-diol (calenduladiol, 1), is a pentacyclic lupane-type triterpene with the interesting feature of being hydroxylated at C-16. Continuing our previous work on semisynthesis of derivatives obtained from the natural triterpene calenduladiol and their evaluation as potential cholinesterase inhibitors, we report here the synthesis of six new lupanes (3-8). These compounds have been obtained by sequential oxidations and reaction with NH2OH of the starting compounds, the natural calenduladiol (1) and its analog 30-oxocalenduladiol (2), previously obtained by allylic oxidation with Se2O. Their structures were confirmed by analysis of their 1H and 13C NMR and ESI-MS spectra. The complete assignation of the signals was achieved with the aid of 2D NMR experiments (COSY, HSQC, HMBC, NOESY). All of the new derivatives were evaluated as potential in vitro BChE inhibitors by the Ellman´s colorimetric method. In order to determine the BChE/AChE selectivity of compounds 3-8, their antiAChE activity was evaluated. All of them failed to inhibit AChE, but we found that the best BChE inhibition was observed for 3,16,30-trioxolup-20(29)-ene (4) with an IC50 value of 21.5 μM, which elicited a selective inhibitor profile